Covington – When her daughter on the verge of death traveled by air ambulance to the hospital, Jennifer Daly could only think of the parts of life that still awaited the 12-year-old girl: Would she fall in love? Would you marry and have children?
As she walked the path from the family home north of Lake Pontchartrain to the hospital in New Orleans where her daughter, later diagnosed with coronavirus, was taken, she was thinking about what life would be like without her Juliet.
“She’s such a sweet girl. The sweetest in the world. She doesn’t deserve this. Also, she was begging God … please help me,” Jennifer said, speaking Thursday from the family home in Covington with her husband Sean. and the girl, already recovered.
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Watching Juliet play with her five-year-old brother, it’s hard to imagine that just last month the little girl was on the verge of death. At one point he suffered cardiac arrest and the doctors had to perform CPR for two minutes until he reacted.
“I died and came back,” said Juliet.
His passage through the coronavirus did not start with many of the symptoms that affect adults, such as difficulty breathing. She suffered from stomach pain and vomiting, and her mother, who is a radiologist, thought it might be appendicitis or another abdominal disorder, but at the same time her lips were turning blue and her limbs were cold.
Juliet was rushed to the local hospital emergency room. There, she suffered cardiac arrest, was revived with cardiac massage, and taken by air ambulance to Oschsner Medical Center. It was received by Dr. Jake Kleinmahon, one of whom took charge of it for the next 10 days.
“Upon arrival, Juliet was one of the most serious children we have seen with COVID-19,” said Kleinmahon. The upper chamber of his heart did not coordinate properly with the lower one and he was beginning to experience “multiple organ failure”, he added.
Kleinmahon says that children infected with the coronavirus often exhibit different symptoms than adults: in some cases, like Juliet’s, they are abdominal disorders, in others it can be a rash. Many children are infected with a virus other than the coronavirus, and that was the case with Juliet.
In most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that disappear in two to three weeks. In some people, especially older adults and those with underlying health conditions, it can lead to more serious illnesses, such as pneumonia, and even death
Juliet spent four days intubated and sedated, until she was able to breathe again on her own. He was discharged on April 15. The doctor said that his heart function is absolutely normal. He predicts that he will have a “totally normal life”.
When he regained consciousness, his parents say, his first concern was the classes he had missed. When her mother told her what had happened to her, Juliet’s eyes grew as big as a couple of dishes.
“At first I was very nervous,” said Juliet. He wanted to know if the disease would have consequences in his body.
Jennifer said that neither she nor her husband knew of anyone infected with the coronavirus prior to their daughter’s illness. If they hadn’t taken her to the hospital on time, they don’t know if she would have survived. She is glad to know that Juliet does not remember the four days of intubation. She can never forget them.
“She just remembers that her dad told her she was going to sleep. ‘They will put a tube down your throat. They will take you by helicopter. You will wake up in another hospital and mom will be there,'” Jennifer said. “Well … that’s what happened.”
