Help Lay 5 yr old Gracie to Rest
Donation protected
Hello,
First off thank you for even clicking this link.
My name is Katie Lankford some may remember me from last yr. I reposted the following post September 6th. But before u read that Bc some won’t want to. Gracie lost her battle of life today at 6:30 this morning. Her vent failed her just like her mother did. This was so unexpected, my dad and Gracie’s dad just fed and played with her at 230 this morning she was so happy. and then 4 hrs later she’s gone. We don’t have the funds to afford rent that’s due Friday (daddy had a job he was supposed to finish today in order to pay rent he is a tree service owner) let alone a funeral. If u can’t afford plz just share anything a share a thought a prayer anything is helpful, Our worlds revolved around gracie, we don’t know what to do at the moment nothing seems real, nothing seems fair, there so many emotions and thoughts.
I thought after seeing a post I would reshare Gracie’s story as some may not know and it’s a story I’ll share forever. I’ll try and make it in the shortest form possible please feel free to ask questions, share, or even still say a thought or prayer as they always are welcomed and help. June 21st 2022 I received what was the worse phone call of my life by far. And of the call all I knew was Amber Whitaker had messed up for good this time. After playing phone tag my dad sends a texts she’s done she’s done it this time Katie, One kids life was took, Gracie was bad and rosey was messed up. I call and finally get ahold of him. To learn that Gracie (my sister), Rosey (my sister) Jayden (ambers (driver and Gracie’s and roseys mom) besties daughter) and Gabrielle (ambers then best friends son) had been in a BAD wreck. Amber was under the influence and at the time I knew it was Xanax, and methadone for sure but we would later learn several months later that amber had the following in her system: 1.methadone 2.Xanax 3.Tadpoles 4.meth 5.K2 (synthetic Weed) 6.THC 7.Klonopines with a bunch of others but that’s what I can remeber (her toxcology report was thicker than all the evidence they had on her). Some remeber the tree that fell last yr after the bad storms. They were picking the remaining debris and limbs up when amber passed out blew through a stop sign, got to the flagger where she almost took him out, came to went around a car went back out and then smacked the back of the DOT truck. I got to breneners about an hr later after leaving my job and heading there. I saw my then 3 yr old sister laying lifeless on a hospital bed with wires and beeps and stuff everywhere. Come not even 12 hrs later Gracie’s 3% chance of survival would drop down to less than 1% as she would go see the angels NUMEROUS times that day and the next months to come. I couldn’t tell u a exact number of times we lost her I stoped after 32 brain damage started to worry me. Day 3 Gracie was rushed to emergency surgery Bc her low intestines and colon had stretched from the seatbelt tightening and tore leaking poising into her. This resulted in her being open for 8 weeks with a sponge sucking all the toxics out, she Now has a Ostomy. I’m going to make this short and just go into her surgieries and not what each day took place. Plz look up #Graciestrong or #graciestrong22 (I’m trying to make all post now under this one as my original blew up to multiple Gracie’s) if u would like to know each day as I posted almost daily of what took place. The next surgeries would be them going in and out of her stomach to check the healin and amount of toxic and to change the sponge. The next one would be a PIC line (it’s a more permanent IV above the heart) she needed this due to she was staying long term constant ivs and it was starting to affect her skin. Just know as I said the next they weren’t back to back back down were drug out (her neck stayed dislocated for idk how long, her heart stayed stopping or raising for months) The next would be Gtube so they could give meds and start giving her proper proteins and water. The next would be her back surgery (we didn’t know her lower back was broke until the 7th day due to all other injuries, surgeries, healing and swelling and infections etc) She would have neck surgery finally Then b4 neck is healed she’s TRANSPORTED by Ambulance to CHAROLETTE (keep in mind her heart is really weak and won’t stay stable at all at this point so this was scary). She would then go have open heart surgery the next morning, then the next morning be transported BACK to Brenners. Then eventually we spent her 4th bday August 24th 22 in Brenners hospital, she didn’t see outside or smell fresh air until august 25th where she got to sit on the 6th stairwell for all of 5 minutes. We didn’t come home until January 19th 2023 . 2 days shy of 7 Months of hospital food, air, smell, lights, routine… staring at the same ceiling everyday. Heres a list of all medical things wrong and that broke or got messed up (at least all the major ones) 1. She shifted her C4 in her spinal cord 2.she broke her L5 and L6 spinal cord (it’s ur lower back) 3.She has an colostomy bag 4. She has a G-tube (feeding tube) 5. She has a pace maker 6.she has to be Catherated to pee every 4 hrs 7.she’s Quadplegic (she cant move anything below her neck) 8.She has s tracheostomy 9.she’s ventilator dependent This is just short sum up of the main events and lifetime injuries. This doesn’t include the long days and nights, or the switch in life, the tears, the seconds that felt like days, the thoughts during these surgieries Bc we really didn’t know if she was gonna make it to surgery table let alone through a surgery. This doesn’t include the days we deal with daily. This is just an idea of what graice got taken from her and had to deal with. Not what she goes through daily as a kid who once used to be so independent. If u read this far thank you so much. All we ask for is thoughts and prayers as we still are adjusting to everything. The girls are still processing their MOTHER causes all this pain and woman they once loved so much they now are torn and u can see it in their eyes. Forever until the moon turns to a fish #LONGLIVEJAYDEN #graciestrong22 The worst phone call and camera pop up was at 630 this morning when daddy called me saying she was dying I needed to get there. ️
I will update on here as we make arrangements. We do ask that no black is wore only blue or paw patrol or green or something fun. Gracie was a fun person and spirit.
Fly high my babygirl you are missed
First off thank you for even clicking this link.
My name is Katie Lankford some may remember me from last yr. I reposted the following post September 6th. But before u read that Bc some won’t want to. Gracie lost her battle of life today at 6:30 this morning. Her vent failed her just like her mother did. This was so unexpected, my dad and Gracie’s dad just fed and played with her at 230 this morning she was so happy. and then 4 hrs later she’s gone. We don’t have the funds to afford rent that’s due Friday (daddy had a job he was supposed to finish today in order to pay rent he is a tree service owner) let alone a funeral. If u can’t afford plz just share anything a share a thought a prayer anything is helpful, Our worlds revolved around gracie, we don’t know what to do at the moment nothing seems real, nothing seems fair, there so many emotions and thoughts.
I thought after seeing a post I would reshare Gracie’s story as some may not know and it’s a story I’ll share forever. I’ll try and make it in the shortest form possible please feel free to ask questions, share, or even still say a thought or prayer as they always are welcomed and help. June 21st 2022 I received what was the worse phone call of my life by far. And of the call all I knew was Amber Whitaker had messed up for good this time. After playing phone tag my dad sends a texts she’s done she’s done it this time Katie, One kids life was took, Gracie was bad and rosey was messed up. I call and finally get ahold of him. To learn that Gracie (my sister), Rosey (my sister) Jayden (ambers (driver and Gracie’s and roseys mom) besties daughter) and Gabrielle (ambers then best friends son) had been in a BAD wreck. Amber was under the influence and at the time I knew it was Xanax, and methadone for sure but we would later learn several months later that amber had the following in her system: 1.methadone 2.Xanax 3.Tadpoles 4.meth 5.K2 (synthetic Weed) 6.THC 7.Klonopines with a bunch of others but that’s what I can remeber (her toxcology report was thicker than all the evidence they had on her). Some remeber the tree that fell last yr after the bad storms. They were picking the remaining debris and limbs up when amber passed out blew through a stop sign, got to the flagger where she almost took him out, came to went around a car went back out and then smacked the back of the DOT truck. I got to breneners about an hr later after leaving my job and heading there. I saw my then 3 yr old sister laying lifeless on a hospital bed with wires and beeps and stuff everywhere. Come not even 12 hrs later Gracie’s 3% chance of survival would drop down to less than 1% as she would go see the angels NUMEROUS times that day and the next months to come. I couldn’t tell u a exact number of times we lost her I stoped after 32 brain damage started to worry me. Day 3 Gracie was rushed to emergency surgery Bc her low intestines and colon had stretched from the seatbelt tightening and tore leaking poising into her. This resulted in her being open for 8 weeks with a sponge sucking all the toxics out, she Now has a Ostomy. I’m going to make this short and just go into her surgieries and not what each day took place. Plz look up #Graciestrong or #graciestrong22 (I’m trying to make all post now under this one as my original blew up to multiple Gracie’s) if u would like to know each day as I posted almost daily of what took place. The next surgeries would be them going in and out of her stomach to check the healin and amount of toxic and to change the sponge. The next one would be a PIC line (it’s a more permanent IV above the heart) she needed this due to she was staying long term constant ivs and it was starting to affect her skin. Just know as I said the next they weren’t back to back back down were drug out (her neck stayed dislocated for idk how long, her heart stayed stopping or raising for months) The next would be Gtube so they could give meds and start giving her proper proteins and water. The next would be her back surgery (we didn’t know her lower back was broke until the 7th day due to all other injuries, surgeries, healing and swelling and infections etc) She would have neck surgery finally Then b4 neck is healed she’s TRANSPORTED by Ambulance to CHAROLETTE (keep in mind her heart is really weak and won’t stay stable at all at this point so this was scary). She would then go have open heart surgery the next morning, then the next morning be transported BACK to Brenners. Then eventually we spent her 4th bday August 24th 22 in Brenners hospital, she didn’t see outside or smell fresh air until august 25th where she got to sit on the 6th stairwell for all of 5 minutes. We didn’t come home until January 19th 2023 . 2 days shy of 7 Months of hospital food, air, smell, lights, routine… staring at the same ceiling everyday. Heres a list of all medical things wrong and that broke or got messed up (at least all the major ones) 1. She shifted her C4 in her spinal cord 2.she broke her L5 and L6 spinal cord (it’s ur lower back) 3.She has an colostomy bag 4. She has a G-tube (feeding tube) 5. She has a pace maker 6.she has to be Catherated to pee every 4 hrs 7.she’s Quadplegic (she cant move anything below her neck) 8.She has s tracheostomy 9.she’s ventilator dependent This is just short sum up of the main events and lifetime injuries. This doesn’t include the long days and nights, or the switch in life, the tears, the seconds that felt like days, the thoughts during these surgieries Bc we really didn’t know if she was gonna make it to surgery table let alone through a surgery. This doesn’t include the days we deal with daily. This is just an idea of what graice got taken from her and had to deal with. Not what she goes through daily as a kid who once used to be so independent. If u read this far thank you so much. All we ask for is thoughts and prayers as we still are adjusting to everything. The girls are still processing their MOTHER causes all this pain and woman they once loved so much they now are torn and u can see it in their eyes. Forever until the moon turns to a fish #LONGLIVEJAYDEN #graciestrong22 The worst phone call and camera pop up was at 630 this morning when daddy called me saying she was dying I needed to get there. ️
I will update on here as we make arrangements. We do ask that no black is wore only blue or paw patrol or green or something fun. Gracie was a fun person and spirit.
Fly high my babygirl you are missed
Organizer
Katie Lankford
Organizer
Lexington, NC