Jett Smith Medical Account

Jett’s Story….
Sunday 8/7/16, Jett was outside playing, he started to complain of being dizzy, and lost his balance. We initially thought he just got too hot playing outside and maybe dehydrated. After a short rest he was back up and playing again, but then at bedtime he stated getting dizzy again and vomiting, this continued throughout the night.
Monday 8/8/16, I took Jett to see the Doctor, as he still was having symptoms, at the time they treated him for dehydration, as all his basic labs ect. looked good, and the symptoms he had were same as dehydration. We went home and throughout the day Monday his symptoms did not go away after his IV hydration. The Doctor at his Primary Care told me to take him to the Claremore Indian Hospital Emergency room (we do not have Private Health Insurance so we use and rely on the Indian Health services)
CIH ER done a CT scan where they found a mass on Jett’s brain, at the time it was unknown what the mass was exactly. As parents we were heart broken and in total shock, and scared as hell to be totally honest.
We were transferred by ambulance to St. Francis Children’s Hospital in Tulsa late Monday night.
Tuesday 8/9/16, Jett went under anesthesia for a MRI, MRV, MRA. These are the test’s that determined that the mass in his brain was a blood clot that caused him to have a stroke, and that is what was causing him to have the dizziness and inability to walk, stand, or have balance. By Tuesday evening Jett seemed to greatly improve, he was eating and sitting up in bed playing. Whew! We think everting is ok and as soon as we get the answers of why this happened and what we are going to do about it figured out we are good to go home………..
Wednesday 8/10/16 (Call’s 10th Birthday)
As we wait for the Neurologists to come in and get the game plan for treatment, Doctors came in to let us know that they have contacted Children’s Medical Center in Dallas for consult on what to do as they did not have much experience with Stroke in children. Within an hour we were told that a Medical Flight team was on their way from Dallas to get Jett. This is where the real whirlwind effect started to happen, everything happened so fast. Neurologist from Dallas insisted Jett be in a neck brace, for a 4 year old this is a tough one! More details on this as we go….
Jett loved the plane ride to Dallas he thought it was cool to be taking a jet and his name is Jett lol!
We get to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas , where he was put in the Pediatric Critical ICU, where we meet the Neurologist that will be treating Jett, this guy specializes in stroke in children and has discovered a reason it is happening (still very rare) turns out Jett is his 7th child with a stroke this year, this doctor has a worldwide research team working on the studies of child stroke, and he is literally writing the book on it, so we have full faith we are in the right hands. It was explained to us that in the previous 6 cases before Jett, all being boys, that where the arteries run up the back of the vertebra in the neck, in these previous cases they have found that when the neck turns too far or over extends the artery gets pinched by the vertebra (this is why he is now in a neck brace), over time the continuous pinching of the artery creates a dissection (a tear) in the artery, causing it to bleed, the body’s natural way of stopping the bleeding is to form a clot. A clot in the flow of blood to the brain caused a stroke.
Thursday 8/11/16 Jett went under anesthesia for an Angiogram where they went up through the artery in his thigh, running catheters up the arteries to the neck going to his brain, they injected a die and took scans of his arteries in his brain to find out exactly where the clot is and to see if the artery was damaged.
As soon as the procedure was done the Neuro Radiologist Doctor came and told us that Jett has a total Right side occlusion (total blockage of his Right Posterior Inferior Cerebellar Artery… AKA his PICA) the blockage is from a dissection of the artery, just like the previous cases the Neurologist had seen.
Jett is also under the care of Hematologists team for possible blood disorders because, of blood clotting issues and being on the blood thinners.
Friday 8/12/16 The Plan…..
Jett will get to leave the PCICU today to go to a regular room on the Neuro floor.
He has to get injections twice a day of the blood thinning medication, this will continue for 6 months to a year once we get home. He will remain in the neck brace for several months, all of his follow up will be done in Dallas, in a month or two he will have to come back to repeat the same test that was done on Thursday, it is suspected that he will have to have neck surgery to fuse his vertebra where it cannot over extend and no longer pinch the artery. Jett will also have physical therapy to get strength back ect. He will have to have continuous blood tests when we get home also.
He will have major limitations of what he can do, he can’t ride his bike, four wheeler, tractor, wrestle, jump, do his tricks, rough housing ect, it will be very rough going for our boy who is a rough and tumble farm kid. His activities will be reading, playing indoors, light swimming/floating in water basically, watching tv. We are unsure when he will be able to go/start back to school.
At this time I do not know when I will be able to be back in the salon, as I will be taking him to therapy, giving his injections, and caring for our sweet boy.
This is where we are at as of now. We do not know yet when he will get to come home from this initial stay.
We greatly appreciate all the prayers & help at home we have been getting, while we are away. We could not have a better support system, much love and thanks to all that have prayed and helped us in any way!

This account is being set up to help pay for Jett's medical care, & the continued trips to and from Dallas for his continued care, and to help get him comfortable once we are home.  We do not have private insurance and at this time we do not know if Indian health services will cover him compleatly or if any at all, if anyone has experiance with using IHS you know the battle it is to get the services needed.