Steve's Covid19 brain injury story
Our world was turned upside down when our brother Steve Laviniere (from Bobby & Steve) caught COVID-19 at the beginning of March 2020 and tried to manage the initial symptoms at home. On the 29th of March his breathing deteriorated and his wife Julie drove him to hospital, where he walked into A&E by himself.
He was quickly placed in intensive care (ICU) put in an induced coma and on a ventilator, where he remained for 3.5 weeks. During that time, Julie received calls to say he was extremely ill & that things were not looking good. One by one all of his organs started shutting down & at one point he required CPR.
After 3.5 weeks his organs slowly improved so he was taken out of the induced coma, his eyes were opening and he was blinking but Steve wasn’t responding to the doctors commands of squeezing their hand or following their finger with his eyes (tracking). The doctors decided to perform a CT & MRI scan on Steve’s brain which showed that he had contracted a very rare brain injury as a result of COVID, and was diagnosed with Acute haemorrhagic leukoencephalitis (AHLE- aka- Hurst disease). The Doctors told Julie that they didn’t know if Steve would or would not recover.
The virus bacteria got into Steve’s nervous system and inflamed cells across his brain causing multiple small bleeds leaving him in a prolonged disorder of consciousness (PDOC). This condition means that Steve can’t speak, or move his body. He opens his eyes and blinks but is unable to react to us and is being fed via a tube in his stomach.
After the first three months all of Steve’s organs fully recovered and to date he is only on medication to control spasms (involuntary movements) caused by the injury. 16 months later, Steve is still in the same PDOC condition, and for the last eight months has been in a specialist neurological nursing home/hospital.
There is no medicine to repair this condition, however Steve is a fighter and receiving the best care possible so we are confident that Steve’s condition will improve in time.
When the time is right, we know Steve will benefit from being at home with Julie and all our family surrounding him with love, the greatest medicine of all.
We are planning for the future, and to put this in place the family home will need major home adaptations, so we will be extremely grateful for any donations to fund the renovation, and go towards Steve’s future care and rehabilitation.
We thank you for your prayers, kindness, generosity, love and positive energy.
The Laviniere & Groove Odyssey family