Video given and dedicated to us by the Arts, Media, and Sports Sector during our farewell sunday.
Video we dedicated to AMS during the farewell sunday (includes videos of Joe's coma and therapy sessions)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Thank you so, so much for your love and support! It’s true what Jesus said that the world will know that we are His disciples if we love one another. My family is so impacted by the love of the church! Both of my parents (Delfin and Emilia) were baptized last May 6, 2007. Praise the Lord!!!
I know that you are curious to know what really happened to Joe. It’s a long, exciting story that I can’t even describe in words but let me give you a picture of what happened.
In Feb. 14, Joe was diagnosed at the Makati Medical Center with a simple gastroenteritis. His symptoms were diarrhea, dizziness, vomiting, and tingling sensations in the fingertips. After receiving his antibacterial shot and other drug prescriptions, we were discharged from the hospital.
Joe hosted the AMS Manila Valentine’s party that same night but he was noticeably sick. After the party, we went to Diamond Hotel where we decided to celebrate our last Valentine's Day in the Philippines.
The following morning, Joe woke up again with feelings of dizziness. This time though, he was seeing double. When he stood up to go to the restroom, he vomited again. I called the hotel front desk to help me bring him to the hospital.
The hotel doctor and nurse came to the room. Thinking it was mere dehydration, they gave him dextrose. However, after a few hours, Joe became weaker and his gait became more unsteady. Finally, when he couldn’t even stand by himself anymore, the nurse decided to bring him to the Manila Doctors’ Hospital.
On the way to the Manila Doctors, I started noticing that Joe's eyes were staring. His upper lip was also twitching as he spoke. In the ER, I told the doctor that his speech was becoming slurred, his left eyelid was starting to droop, his fingers were clawed in, and he could barely open his other eye. The doctor then decided to bring him to CT scan but they saw no damage to his brain.
We admitted him to the same hospital in Feb 15. At night, when a doctor came to check him, she asked him to open his mouth wide. He couldn’t close it back. He had a lock jaw. When Joe attempted to manually correct his lock jaw, his whole body started to shake. He was given a muscle relaxant. From that time on, he shakes when awake, is given a sedative which makes him sleep, and shakes again when he wakes up. And the cycle goes on.
Soon the case was outside the gastrologist’s hands and into the neurologist’s hands.
We then decided to transfer him to a different hospital with a good reputation on neurology, St. Luke’s hospital. He was assigned to the best neurologist in that hospital. In the emergency room, it was found out that Joe was barely breathing and so they immediately intubated him. His doctor would later on say that this was a life saving procedure for him. Apparently, secretions were starting to block his airways. His lungs were only 40% functioning on its own.
He was brought to the ICU. The neurologist formed a team of experts to work on Joe’s case. There was an obvious “insult” to the brain he said, but as to what caused it or what it actually was, they didn’t know. The MRI showed negative for any brain damage. The brain fluid from the spinal tap didn’t show any microorganism in his brain. All his blood test results were normal. He didn¡¦t test positive for any bacteria. Yet his body deteriorated swiftly. Eventually, he lost any kind of movement. His eyes closed more permanently. He stopped responding to any stimuli. He fell into coma so fast. Yet, his body manifested seizures. The doctors were puzzled. They’ve never seen anything like this before.
Two doctors even went to our house and Joe’s office to take samples of water, ingredients for cooking, food left overs, and to take pictures of the surrounding environment in our condominium. It was like a CSI quest.
After five seemingly long days, the doctors finally told me the diagnosis, “Bickerstaff Brainstem Encephalitis”. It’s a rare autoimmune disease that develops after a primary disease as simple as cough or cold, and diarrhea. This disease is not even in medical text books. The doctors loosely diagnosed it via internet research. It was the first of its kind in the hospital, if not, the Philippines.
Plasmapheresis was done. It was determined that he¡¦ll have five sessions of this treatment. Joe¡¦s blood was extracted from his body and excess antibody was filtered. Because of Joe¡¦s seizures, his muscles also started to tear. The muscle tear released toxins in his body that took its toll on his kidneys. The kidneys started to fail and so dialysis was done to support his kidneys.
It was a waiting game. We were all waiting for Joe¡¦s body to respond to the treatment. After two family conferences with the doctors, we decided to fly Joe to the states. However, we would need to raise $160,000 to transport him via air ambulance. A doctor would later tell me that after the first family conference, he was thinking, “This guy has only three to four days to live.”
Ten days after plasmapheresis started, there was no sign of improvement. It was a Sunday so I decided to go to church. My sister, who stayed with Joe in the hospital, did not tell me that Joe went down to GCS 3. GCS stands for Glascow Coma Scale. It ranges from 3 to 15. Three (3) is almost brain dead. Fifteen is like all of us --normal.
I had no idea that Joe went down this close to death. In fact, that day, I was feeling positive that Joe was showing signs of improvement. In the afternoon, a couple of disciples visited him. They too noticed that Joe seemed to be responding. At round 8 pm, I was about to walk out of the NCCU (neuro critical care unit) after visiting hours, when a disciple called my attention. Joe seemed to be waking up! With difficulty marked in his face, left arm and right leg lifted, he seemed to be trying to sit up on the bed. We called the doctor immediately and she cried, “It’s a miracle!” She immediately came in to talk try to talk to him. That evening, Joe jumped from GCS 3 to GCS 11, just when everyone thought he was about to expire.
Word spread quickly among the doctors and even the nurses in the hospital. At first they doubted if he was really waking up, so they did an EEG on him. An EEG monitors the activity of his brain. It’s also a way to find out if it was a seizure. Finally, the EEG doctor told me, I don’t think it’s a seizure. I think he’s really trying to wake up. Let’s keep on praying.”
From that time on, Joe’s recovery went on high speed. The doctors and nurses would enter and leave his room with big smiles on their faces. They called him the “star patient”. The talk of the town. A miracle. Doctors knew it was a miracle. They too have been praying for him and have been spending sleepless nights trying to “salvage” his life.
I remember my prayer of surrender to God one night. I said, “God if you are going to take Joe away, please take him away swiftly. But if you are going to restore him, please restore him swiftly too. I don¡¦t want to see him develop infections and sustain one wound after another because of all the tubes in his body.”
God does answer prayers! One by one, he restored everything to Joe: his sense of hearing, his sight, his taste, his smell, his respiration, and now slowly, his movement. One doctor told me that people who go down to GCS 3 rarely recover fully. Some people go out of the hospital in a vegetative state. Joe is by far their most successful GCS-3 patient. He walked out of the hospital almost completely restored!
God is so awesome!!! He was there with us through everything. I would like to share with you scripture that God gave to me as I was randomly reading the Psalms to Joe while he was in coma.
“I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done. The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.” Ps. 118:17-18
I knew back then (with much struggling in my faith) that Joe will not die. Instead, God will use his experience to glorify His name. Praise God for his wonderful will.
Joe was finally discharged from the hospital on March 26—which happens to be my birthday. Having him back to me is the greatest birthday gift from God. God has also provided a way for us to pay the hospital bill which reached to almost $50,000. God used you to meet our needs and we are so grateful to you.
Thank you brothers and sisters! To God be the Glory!!!
Ingrid
P.S. For pictures of Joe and his developments, please visit
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2094039174
