Update on Mom in Coma (due to swine flu)

I have been in contact with Valerie Post’s mother-in-law, Bonnie Jones, who has been keeping me informed on what’s going on. For those that may not remember Valerie went to the doctor after having back aches and they wouldn’t go away, she found out that she actually had the swine flu and they would have to have a c-section two months early. During the c-section they had to put Valerie into a medically induced coma in order to save her life.

IMG: Courtesy of Bryan Post

Valerie has never met her newborn daughter, Norah, instead family has been taking care of her and big sister Trinity as dad, Bryan, goes back and forth between the family and the hospital every week.   On September 13th it marked day 37 in the hospital for Valerie Post, she has missed turning 24 (in this short time period), her 2 year anniversary, her husband’s 24th birthday and watching her little ones grow.

Here’s a brief story of the two of them (written by Bonnie):

Bryan and Valerie are a young couple who got married for all the right reasons, they are in love. They planned both of their beautiful little girls.They had good jobs. They had money in the bank. They made a choice to move to South Dakota by his dad and his sister. The truck was packed and ready to go. Bryan would drive with all their belongings, Pregnant Valerie and little Trinity (17 months old) would be flying.

IMG: Courtesy of Bryan Post

As you all know the trip never happened, instead she went to the hospital and had her baby. Baby Norah would be immediately flown to the St.Joseph’s hospital in Tampa while mom lay in a coma. This doesn’t end here, instead it gets worse and better at the same time for them. There are days where they get to see the silver lining of hope, but there are others that worry them as they stare at all the machines (well over 10) that are keeping her alive, all but her brain and her heart. She went into the coma because her lungs collapsed and they had hoped by putting her on the life support it would help fight that, her lungs will never work on their own.

She will need oxygen for the rest of her life. She will need rehabilitation to learn how to walk, talk, and eat. She will have to be weaned off the addiction from 37 days of hard, heavy narcotics keeping her pain free and in the coma.

Bonnie goes on to say that she has the best doctors at Tampa General Hospital and they aren’t ready to give up on her. As you can see, neither is her family who has been going back and forth. This past week she had heart surgery, which she showed slight signs of healing, luckily they were given rooms at the Hampton Inn for free so they could be there during this trying time and Bryan could be near his daughters and wife, not to mention the family for support. But this hasn’t always been the case, here is a small look at what Bryan has been dealing with on a weekly basis:

- First he hasn’t been working during this time. But he was offered his job back and he will go as soon as his wife comes home.
- $25 day in fuel (to go back and forth)
- He needs to eat, pay for parking too.
- diapers (both girls are in them)
- Trinity was int he potty training stage until this happened.
- newborn Norah uses baby formula which costs $18 per day and lasts 3 days.
- Trinity needs breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

There have been days where instead of going to visit with the girls he stayed at the hospital parking garage to cut down on costs. But that only made him miss his precious daughters. This is a family that really needs everyone’s thoughts going there way. Bonnie says that her son never meant for this to get so much attention but he wanted other pregnant women to know how serious the swine flu is to them, especially since he’s seen it first hand.

She also stated that he will not ask for help, but he could always use gas cards, diapers, formula and good thoughts. They will be doing a poker run in October, I’ll write more about that later.

(Thank you to Bonnie Jones and Bryan Post, who supplied me with this information.)