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Alexus Williams

Photo of Alexus WilliamsMy Diagnosis Story from 9 1/2 Months Old

My family would never have known that their life, and my life would change in just three and a half weeks. I was nine and a half months old when I became fatally sick. My 3 ½ week hospitalization would begin in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Room 770, bed 1, and lives would change forever. When I got to the hospital, the attending physicians realized that I was lethargic and concluded that I may have been dehydrated and septic. An x-ray showed that I needed a chest tube. I still have the scar. An Endocrinologist came in, examined me, and found that it was Type 1 Diabetes because my blood sugar was 1100, one thousand times the normal result. I was the youngest patient out of everyone my doctors could find that was so young with diabetes. And because there was no genetic linkage with my parents’ family and diabetes, I was considered a statistic. I had a team of doctors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I was hooked up to so many IV bags, they had to be spread out on both sides of my hospital crib. I was intubated and had to have a foley catheter in place. Also, doctors had a hard time looking for an open vein that would go straight to my heart due to a cardiovascular collapse that I had. Therefore, an Anesthesiologist inserted a right jugular line, which is an I.V Line through a large vein in the right side of my neck. I still have the scar. My grandmother worked at the same hospital I was a patient in, so she and her co-workers would come and check on me whenever possible. My uncle also worked at the same hospital as a security guard and would come visit me too. My parents stayed with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. My condition seemed to get worse because 3 days later, my mom noticed a black stripe on my right leg. She went on to ask my grandmother about it, and then the doctors. It turned out that my right leg was beginning to lose life and pulses were becoming weak, not only that, but my left toe was also starting to turn a gangrene color. The doctors concluded that I had a blood clot that was causing my leg to look discolored because of the lack of circulation. The next day, the attending surgeon performed a procedure where he would inject a medication called Streptokinase that was supposed to remove my clot. Well, something happened because my grandmother told me this, “When you were coming back from the Operating Room (OR), the registered nurse on duty, who was someone I knew, told me she was so scared. I asked her why. She said, ‘Alexus coded (heart flat-lined), and she had to be resuscitated. I thought she wasn’t going to make it.’ My grandmother said I had died. I eventually went into a 3 1/2-hour coma. When I woke up, my grandmother said my leg looked like black leather above the knee. I had my amputation on 07/30/1992. My grandmother’s co-workers and people from other departments lined up and down the halls to provide my family with moral support. My grandmother described it as truly incredible. Someone from my grandmother’s church came and prayed over me with oil. During the surgery, the OR staff could see I was fighting to live. I was admitted on 07/22/1992 and discharged on 08/13/1992. With what happened to me, my dad describes it as crazy, traumatic, and unreal. He told me it was like a movie, a nightmare. My mom said it was like being in hell. She felt like there was no one to talk to because her family was in Colombia. I’m happy I’m alive to share my story with others, and I credit that to my Heavenly Father.