COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) – A teenager has been hospitalized with the flu for weeks.
“It’s the worst nightmare that any parent can imagine. I’ve literally watched her fight for her life and struggle for every breath, for seven weeks now,” Renee Tackett said.
Just last month, her 17-year-old daughter, Jocey, documented her day with her new horse and now, she’s at Nationwide Children’s Hospital dealing with complications from Flu A and Strep A.
“Something about the combination and her body just went crazy. But the doctors can’t explain it. Why she didn’t show any symptoms. Why she got so sick, so fast,” Tackett said.
Tackett said life changed in a blink with no warning.
“I was literally making chicken noodle dinner one second and then rushing her to the hospital for what I thought was fluids the next and then she was coding, and here we are seven weeks later and she’s still so sick,” she said.
Jocey has brain injuries and they are preparing for her to be in a wheelchair in the future.
“They were able to take the heart ECMO off, and then her kidneys came back on and were working, but the lungs took the hardest hit for sure. So she’s still on a ventilator and will be maybe forever. At least for a long, long time,” Tackett said.
She said Jocey would not be here without the medical care she has received, including platelet donations.
“She had 30 bags of blood and 15 bags of platelets to save her life,” Tackett said.
Some of those donations came from complete strangers.
“One was a sweet guy, Edward, from the lab that was drawing people’s blood and knew he was AB positive. And he wanted to go donate platelets,” she said.
Tackett said she feels it is her mission now to ask people to donate blood or platelets if they are eligible. She said it only takes a bit of your time.
“I just want my girl back and my old boring life back. You don’t realize how beautiful those boring, mundane days are home with your kids and your animals doing nothing. But everybody’s healthy. If you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything,” she said.
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