This was one of the most terrifying things Amadea has been through, even though it was short lived (which we are beyond thankful for). What started as a simple skin infection on her leg, quickly turned into something far more serious and deadly as the infection suddenly entered into her blood stream. This in turn quickly led to septic shock. Amadea’s body reacted by becoming extremely hypothermic, reaching a low point of 31 degrees. Her heart rate rapidly declined during transit in the ambulance from Drayton Valley to Edmonton which required a quick response from the PICU Transport team. They administered epinephrine in order to get her blood pressure up as well as her heart rate. I’m incredibly proud of how well Rachel handled the situation as she was alone with the transport team and Amadea. She remained calm and made the correct call in leaving most of the details out while I drove to Edmonton with our other daughter during what was the worst snow storm we had dealt with during the entire year. She knew it was in our best interest that I remained calm in order to get myself as well as Adeline to Edmonton safely. After 24 hours of antibiotics (the strongest antibiotics currently in existence), Amadea quickly turned around and things started improving quickly. She remained on 2 different antibiotics over the next 10 days as she continued to recover at the stollery. We have now been home for a month roughly. I would also like to add that during our time at the hospital, we were blessed in a way that is honestly hard to put into words. The incredible people at Church In the Vine came together and raised the rest of the money for us to be able to get a vehicle to be able to transport Amadea correctly and safely. Also, thank you to everyone else outside of Church in the Vine who donated to us as well. There are a lot of you out there. We are so grateful for each and every one of you. Your money has gone towards something that is truly so important to us. For our family to finally be able to leave the house together again is huge. We have been housebound for 6 months. We have not been able to leave without either having someone watch the kids, or only one of us leaving. Plus, it’s not like we can hire a babysitter as they would need a medical license to be able to watch Amadea unfortunately. The one picture is our first drive with Amadea in our new to us, 2016 Honda Odyssey as we returned home from the Stollery! We love you all, thank you again to everyone who has supported our family. You continue to amaze us each and every day. We feel like most of you should be sick and tired of hearing our needs by this point, yet, you turn around and completely blow us away again and again. We absolutely would not have been able to do this without all of you. ❤️
Dempster's Life 