Support Elizabeth's Medical Journey

Hi, my name is Tina Minges and my husband is Dave, we are hoping to share ourgranddaughter's medical journey. Elizabeth is our sweet, brave and strong 3-year-old granddaughter and she is currently and indefinitely on life support at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Though Elizabeth is as tough as nails, the upcoming medical expenses will place an enormous burden on their family.

Earlier this week, Elizabeth fell ill and was taken to a local hospital where she was given steroids and sent home. Within 24 hours, we rushed her to the emergency room at Cincinnati Children's Hospital after her symptoms worsened. She was extremely lethargic with labored breathing and blue lips. With extremely low oxygen levels, she was admitted to the ICU and we later discovered that she had pneumonia, MRSA in her nose and she became septic. She was intubated and induced into a coma after coding and needing CPR for 6 minutes. Her lungs and heart quickly stopped functioning and an ECMO machine is keeping her alive while she slowly strengthens her heart and lungs. She has also had a heart procedure to search for a blood clot that was never found. Due to the induced coma and swelling, she began dialysis this morning. As many of our loved ones know, Elizabeth has always been such a strong baby girl since birth and this will not be any different. She is such a fighter.

Elizabeth is loved by her 3 wonderful sisters, Natalie, Gabrielle, and Angelina who are saddened by their sister's absence. Our son, Ryan and his wife, Michele are dedicated and wonderful parents. They are absolutely devastated but are remaining as strong as they can be, not just for Elizabeth but for her sisters as well. There is an existing meal train if you would like to provide any dinners for the family but they will need more financial support between missing work and providing for the girls. We are humbly requesting support in raising funds to cover Elizabeth's mounting medical bills, and also to support the home and our other grandaughters.

UPDATE 7/16

Elizabeth is showing signs of improvement! Yesterday, she lost a bit of fluid with no drop in blood pressure. Her heart is showing improved signs of recovery, and her white blood cell count tripled since the day before. Today, she was able to give back a full liter of fluid. Her heart shows measurable signs of improvement. Her final round of plasma replacement happened today. She’ll receive some immune boosters tomorrow. No major changes in other systems, and she will remain on life support for another few weeks while she heals. Below are some pictures of our sweet girl because her dad wanted you all to see her happy bubbly smile. Thank you for all of the donations, our family is truly blown away! Please keep sharing and thinking about our Elizabeth!

UPDATE (8/29)

August 22 - Recap of the past month since the last update... In late July, Elizabeth had 4 clamp trials to assess if she was ready to come off of ECMO support. Her first trial lasted 6 minutes before the doctors canceled due to low oxygen saturation. The second and third went the full 30 minutes but she still wasn't ready. During the trial week, Elzabeth struggled with low blood pressures and needed lots of extra fluid. ID collected a blood culture and found MRSA in her blood. The CMO circuit was contaminated heavily with MRSA. She had a final clamp trial on Monday July 31 and did well enough. The decision was made to take her off of CMO support to help control the infection. Hours after the clamp trial, the surgeons removed the cannulas in her neck. She was still on the respirator and maintaining oxygen. The surgeon noted the arterial cannula fell out, and that she got really lucky it didn't happen without surgeons in the room. She lost 350 ml of blood before surgeons could clamp her artery. Over the next week, Elizabeth transitioned from the VDR respirator that was being used to clear secretions from her lungs to a standard respirator. Her level of support was decreased quickly to near room air support. She was still heavily sedated, so the ICU team helped her through a 3 day rapid detox under anesthesia to prepare her for extubation. During this time, she had a CT scan of her lungs which showed a sever necrosis of her left lung. She is basically living on her one right lung. She also had an MRI of her brain which showed she suffered a small stroke in multiple parts of her brain that control motor function and had many small micro-hemorrhages. Neurology advised we will just have to wait and see what affect all of this will have. She was extubated on August 9 and transition to a high flow nasal cannula. Elizabeth was able somewhat wake up at this point. She weaned down from IV sedation to oral sedation in preparation for a narcotic wean plan. She weaned to a standard nasal cannula for supplemental oxygen. On August 14, she left the ICU and transitioned to non-critical care in a quieter part of the hospital. Since transitioning, she has started interacting, moving more, answering questions, started therapies. She has continued her long controlled narcotic wean and is doing well with it.

She has regained a strong cough and is able to clear lots of lung secretions and mucous.

Her lungs continue to improve and she is weaning off of oxygen. She is still on an antibiotic to control regrowth of infection. She transitioned to inpatient rehab on 8/21 and has 2 three hour chunks of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy every day. She will stay in the rehab unit for the next 4-6 weeks until discharge.

She is currently sound asleep and sounding cozy. Below are some progress pictures of our sweet girl.