A 12-year-old was put in an induced coma after vaping caused damage to her lungs.
Mary Griffin from Belfast, Ireland, shared that her daughter Sarah had a cough and didn’t feel well before bed on a recent Sunday night, however the family wasn’t initially alarmed, as they thought the symptoms were brought on by Sarah’s asthma.
“Her cough was no different from another time, and she or he used her inhaler and nebulizer throughout Sunday night into Monday morning,” Mary explained to Belfast Live.
At that time, Mary left the home to take her other children to high school when Sarah called.
“Sarah rang and said, ‘Come back, mummy, I don’t feel well. I’m afraid,’” the mother said, recounting how she rushed home to get her daughter situated together with her inhaler and nebulizer again, which looked as if it would settle her.
“Some time later I popped out to the shop quickly and Sarah rang again, this time completely out of breath, barely in a position to string a sentence together, saying, ‘I want a physician or to go to hospital,’” Mary recalled.
Sarah’s dad immediately took her to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where a nurse reported that Sarah’s oxygen levels were concerningly low.
“Sarah was just in a blind panic, she was terrified,” Mary said.
“She was on oxygen and was linked as much as all varieties of machines. There have been medical staff throughout her assessing her, they usually said she needed to go to ICU as she was deteriorating in a short time.”
When the doctor took an X-ray of Sarah’s lungs, they realized how badly certainly one of them had been injured, explaining that the opposite one was subsequently working extra time to compensate, causing her asthma to flare up.
To make matters worse, Sarah had also developed an infection, which added to the stress placed on her little body.
“After we got to ICU, the team worked on Sarah for 4½ hours before having to place her into an induced coma. There have been tubes, wires and machines in every single place — it was heartbreaking to see her like that,” Mary said.
“As her mum, I just felt so helpless — it was a nightmare come true.”
Mary tried to elucidate the situation to her other children and calm them down but said that “trying to elucidate to them what was happening was awful.
“They were asking if she was going to die, and I used to be saying, ‘After all not,’ but in my mind I used to be terrified that was an actual possibility,” the anxious mother shared.
“I needed to attempt to keep it together for them, but I used to be out of my mind with worry. I never thought something like this could occur to us — you never do.”
The 12-year-old was “very unstable” and connected to a room of machines respiratory for her and keeping her alive as her body struggled to maintain up.
“It was really hard for the doctors and nurses to seek out a balance for Sarah — in the event that they got her oxygen levels sorted, her blood pressure would go down, or in the event that they got something else sorted, one other certainly one of her vitals would go within the improper direction. It felt like one step forward, two steps backwards — and that went on for a number of days,” Mary said.
“At first, we actually didn’t think Sarah would make it,” she admitted.
The primary time the doctors tried to bring Sarah out of the coma, the method failed and she or he needed to be induced again.
“I had to assist and hold Sarah’s hands to attempt to settle her so the doctors could do what they needed to do,” Mary shared.
“I used to be frightened, and it was horrible to need to see Sarah so scared.”
The team tried to bring her out of the coma again the subsequent day. Because the doctors steadily revived her, the Griffin family finally began to regain hope that Sarah can be okay.
The young girl got here home several days later and has slowly been recovering, although the ordeal has left her with long-term impacts on her health.
“For the remaining of her life Sarah will probably be classed as a high-risk patient if she is admitted to hospital due to effect this has had on her physically,” Mary said, adding that her care has been transferred to the Difficult to Control Asthma Clinic on the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.
“Sarah has been left very lethargic,” Sarah’s mom added. “She is generally stuffed with energy, consistently talking and on the go, but she remains to be recovering and isn’t back to her usual self yet … She still has a protracted road ahead of her.”
The mother-of-four explained that the doctors warned her that if Sarah had not vaped “she would have been in a greater position to fight off the infection,” as vaping had left her lungs very weak.
“The doctors said if Sarah had got to hospital any later, the consequence would have been entirely different. That’s something I can’t even take into consideration,” Mary shared.
Experts are increasingly sounding the alarm, warning against the known and unknown effects of vaping, including shrinking testicles, collapsed lungs, “vaper’s tongue” and an array of other disorders.
“People could go on to develop serious health conditions in consequence of their vaping, which can even exacerbate existing conditions like asthma,” Fidelma Carter, head of public health at Northern Ireland Chest Heart and Stroke, told Belfast Live.
“Our stance on vaping is that we recommend avoiding using vapes aside from in a short-term try and quit smoking and would urge people: when you don’t smoke, don’t vape.”