Help Alicia and Her Family Through This Crisis

Our friend and colleague, Alicia Oliver, a Marion County Domestic Violence Advocate and single mom of 2, went into our local hospital for a routine gall bladder operation on October 3. While under, the surgeon didn’t notice that she had nicked Alicia’s liver. They completed the surgery & sent her back to her room.

The following day, Alicia had a visitor. She asked the visitor to get the nurse so she could tell them about her breathing difficulties and how even though she was in a hospital gown, it felt like she was wearing a pair of pants two sizes too small.

Instead of acting with concern about the feedback being given from the patient, the hospital staff took the assumption route - that the visitor had provided - and that she had taken - outside medication. She denied the assumption and maintained her feelings that something was wrong.

They stayed so focused on outside medication being the reason for her drop in BP that they eventually gave her Narcan instead of a CT scan. The series of medical decisions that followed would scare anybody away from wanting to seek help from a hospital or afraid of leaving a loved one’s side while they are recovering after surgery.

It was tough enough to be away from work & family while waiting days to be considered medically cleared for going under the knife. That was nothing compared to what happened next. Within 48 hours after getting sewn up her BP was almost non-existent & her body was swollen from 12 units of blood infused into it. The blood infusion went into her bowels causing her body to go into septic shock. She flat lined before getting into emergency exploratory surgery where they confirmed that the liver had been nicked.

Alicia spent MANY days in ICU and slowly became well enough to be moved to a critical care unit at the hospital. She was moved to a rehab facility in the evening hours of October 21 where they will continue dialysis 3 times a week. She will be provided physical therapy treatment for the stroke that happened sometime during all of this. Currently there is numbness in her lower extremities and they are working diligently to get her to stand on her own.

Alicia’s parents were called home years ago. Her adult siblings have stepped in to help out with the day to day care for their nieces ages 11 & 3, all while worrying about their own sister’s future. Her brother Ancil was and remains her biggest hospital advocate both physically and figuratively! It took his boisterous and frustrated words to get the hospital team to wake up to their call to duty and to check their biases at the door.

Our friend is fighting an uphill battle and the road to recovery is expected to be a long one. Will you please consider helping ease some uncertainty for the family while she is out of work? Uncle Ancil and Auntie Jessica are working hard to keep things as normal for the girls as possible while mom is away. Any little bit will help! Thank you for reading this and for your donation consideration!