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11/16/2009
College student battles H1N1, pneumonia
By ANDREA LARSON
News Staff Writer
When Chris Dekker, a 22-year-old college student from Norfolk, called home and told his parents he had a fever, no one could have imagined it would come so close to taking his life.
Chris? fever began on Friday, Oct. 16. The following Monday, he was sick enough that student health officials at South Dakota State University in Brookings had told Chris to stay away from classes for a week. He was soon on his way home to Norfolk to stay with his parents.
Chris had been tested for influenza at SDSU, but that culture came back negative, said his mother, Cheryl Dekker. Still, she was worried ? Chris? fever wouldn?t break and he had a deep cough that was getting progressively worse.
On Tuesday night, she and her husband, Doug, took their son to the emergency room at Faith Regional Health Services in Norfolk.
?They did confirm that he had pneumonia in the left lobe of his lung. They gave him a dose of steroids and a breathing treatment and a prescription for antibiotics and sent us home,? Cheryl Dekker said.
?They told us to follow up with our own doctor in two to three days, so we made an appointment to see our doctor on that Friday.?
However, Friday would prove to be too long of a wait.
Chris? condition continued to deteriorate and he was rushed to his doctor on Thursday. Not long after getting to his appointment, Chris was admitted as a patient at Faith Regional. But he wouldn?t be there for long.
?(Chris?) oxygen saturation started to drop and they started to increase his oxygen and just couldn?t get those numbers to come up. So they decided they wanted to move him down to intensive care in case it got worse,? Cheryl Dekker said. ?It just didn?t get better. So the decision was made that we were going to intubate him, put him on a ventilator and let it breath for him.?
That Friday morning, Cheryl Dekker said her son was working so hard to breath, that the muscles involved would have eventually fatigued had they not put him on a ventilator. An X-ray was done after the tube was in place to make sure it was in the right position, and the image it relayed was chilling.
?His whole left lung was basically what they called ?whited out,? ? Doug Dekker said. ?It was just full of pneumonia and there was some on the right side. So in less than 24 hours, (Chris) went from bad to horrible to critical.?
Chris was again tested for influenza with the cultures coming back negative. No one knew why Chris was getting so sick, so fast.
?Then the decision was made that we needed to get him down (to Creighton Medical Center). If we waited too much longer, he might be too sick to fly,? Cheryl Dekker said.
CHRIS AND HIS FATHER were flown by fixed-wing airplane from Norfolk?s airport to Omaha in about 25 minutes. Chris? mother, older brother Joe and younger brother Michael drove to meet them at Creighton Medical Center that night.
Chris was tested twice more for influenza at Creighton because the cultures can have a high false negative rate, Cheryl Dekker said. But once a test comes back positive, it is almost a certain thing, doctors told her.
The last culture tested showed that Chris did indeed have H1N1 ? on top of raging pneumonia. He was also diagnosed with ARDS ? acute respiratory distress syndrome. His father said Chris was categorized as ?extremely critical? during the first week he was at Creighton.
Chris will never fully understand what those first harrowing weeks of his disease were like, his parents said, because he had been sedated into unconsciousness when he was put on the ventilator.
Chris remained unconscious until just last Tuesday, Nov. 10. ? for nearly three weeks.
There were times Doug and Cheryl Dekker weren?t sure their son would ever wake up again. Twice they sent for their youngest son, Michael, to join them in Omaha in case Chris didn?t make it through the night.
?It was hour to hour . . . honestly, I had thought about who his pallbearers were going to be,? Doug Dekker said.
Doug Dekker said he and his wife told Chris? doctor on Oct. 28 that they had to know whether their son was going to make it. They were told Chris was extremely sick.
?He said, ?(Chris) is the sickest person in this hospital,? ? Doug Dekker said.
?And so, for a long time, I just really didn?t think he was ever going to survive.?
Chris was the first person in Nebraska given the experimental flu drug Peramivir IV within hours of President Barack Obama signing an emergency release by the FDA. That put him him on three different antibiotics ? all attempting to kill the bug causing the pneumonia.
But Chris? health continued to fail and he eventually needed a chest tube after his lung basically collapsed, Cheryl Dekker said. And the chest tube put pressure on his heart, putting him in an even more critical state.
But then, slowly, very slowly, Chris started to come back, Cheryl Dekker said. She and Doug were told it was because Chris is so young.
?Not just once, not twice, but a million times people have said to us, ?If he were 10 years older he would be dead,? ? Cheryl Dekker said. ?The fact that he is 22 is what saved him.?
After weeks of hanging in the balance, Chris was finally well enough to be removed from the ventilator and out of the induced coma on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Since then, he has been able to talk to his parents and take ?baby steps? with the help of speech, physical and occupational therapy.
No one yet knows what kind of lasting effects Chris? illness will have, but his parents said they are ?cautiously optimistic? that he will make a full recovery. There is the potential for some permanent lung damage, which would require Chris to remain on oxygen, but that is the worst-case scenario, Doug Dekker said.
?I?m not sure what the end result will be, but at this stage of the game, he?s going to live,? Cheryl Dekker said. ?Most of all for him I want life to be back the way it was for him.?
<TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD align=left width=200>
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD align=left width=200>Courtesy Photo <HR>Chris Dekker, 22, became ill on Oct. 16 and recently regained consciousness after weeks of sedation due to a severe case of H1N1, pneumonia and other complications.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/main...rticleID=19878
College student battles H1N1, pneumonia
By ANDREA LARSON
News Staff Writer
When Chris Dekker, a 22-year-old college student from Norfolk, called home and told his parents he had a fever, no one could have imagined it would come so close to taking his life.
Chris? fever began on Friday, Oct. 16. The following Monday, he was sick enough that student health officials at South Dakota State University in Brookings had told Chris to stay away from classes for a week. He was soon on his way home to Norfolk to stay with his parents.
Chris had been tested for influenza at SDSU, but that culture came back negative, said his mother, Cheryl Dekker. Still, she was worried ? Chris? fever wouldn?t break and he had a deep cough that was getting progressively worse.
On Tuesday night, she and her husband, Doug, took their son to the emergency room at Faith Regional Health Services in Norfolk.
?They did confirm that he had pneumonia in the left lobe of his lung. They gave him a dose of steroids and a breathing treatment and a prescription for antibiotics and sent us home,? Cheryl Dekker said.
?They told us to follow up with our own doctor in two to three days, so we made an appointment to see our doctor on that Friday.?
However, Friday would prove to be too long of a wait.
Chris? condition continued to deteriorate and he was rushed to his doctor on Thursday. Not long after getting to his appointment, Chris was admitted as a patient at Faith Regional. But he wouldn?t be there for long.
?(Chris?) oxygen saturation started to drop and they started to increase his oxygen and just couldn?t get those numbers to come up. So they decided they wanted to move him down to intensive care in case it got worse,? Cheryl Dekker said. ?It just didn?t get better. So the decision was made that we were going to intubate him, put him on a ventilator and let it breath for him.?
That Friday morning, Cheryl Dekker said her son was working so hard to breath, that the muscles involved would have eventually fatigued had they not put him on a ventilator. An X-ray was done after the tube was in place to make sure it was in the right position, and the image it relayed was chilling.
?His whole left lung was basically what they called ?whited out,? ? Doug Dekker said. ?It was just full of pneumonia and there was some on the right side. So in less than 24 hours, (Chris) went from bad to horrible to critical.?
Chris was again tested for influenza with the cultures coming back negative. No one knew why Chris was getting so sick, so fast.
?Then the decision was made that we needed to get him down (to Creighton Medical Center). If we waited too much longer, he might be too sick to fly,? Cheryl Dekker said.
CHRIS AND HIS FATHER were flown by fixed-wing airplane from Norfolk?s airport to Omaha in about 25 minutes. Chris? mother, older brother Joe and younger brother Michael drove to meet them at Creighton Medical Center that night.
Chris was tested twice more for influenza at Creighton because the cultures can have a high false negative rate, Cheryl Dekker said. But once a test comes back positive, it is almost a certain thing, doctors told her.
The last culture tested showed that Chris did indeed have H1N1 ? on top of raging pneumonia. He was also diagnosed with ARDS ? acute respiratory distress syndrome. His father said Chris was categorized as ?extremely critical? during the first week he was at Creighton.
Chris will never fully understand what those first harrowing weeks of his disease were like, his parents said, because he had been sedated into unconsciousness when he was put on the ventilator.
Chris remained unconscious until just last Tuesday, Nov. 10. ? for nearly three weeks.
There were times Doug and Cheryl Dekker weren?t sure their son would ever wake up again. Twice they sent for their youngest son, Michael, to join them in Omaha in case Chris didn?t make it through the night.
?It was hour to hour . . . honestly, I had thought about who his pallbearers were going to be,? Doug Dekker said.
Doug Dekker said he and his wife told Chris? doctor on Oct. 28 that they had to know whether their son was going to make it. They were told Chris was extremely sick.
?He said, ?(Chris) is the sickest person in this hospital,? ? Doug Dekker said.
?And so, for a long time, I just really didn?t think he was ever going to survive.?
Chris was the first person in Nebraska given the experimental flu drug Peramivir IV within hours of President Barack Obama signing an emergency release by the FDA. That put him him on three different antibiotics ? all attempting to kill the bug causing the pneumonia.
But Chris? health continued to fail and he eventually needed a chest tube after his lung basically collapsed, Cheryl Dekker said. And the chest tube put pressure on his heart, putting him in an even more critical state.
But then, slowly, very slowly, Chris started to come back, Cheryl Dekker said. She and Doug were told it was because Chris is so young.
?Not just once, not twice, but a million times people have said to us, ?If he were 10 years older he would be dead,? ? Cheryl Dekker said. ?The fact that he is 22 is what saved him.?
After weeks of hanging in the balance, Chris was finally well enough to be removed from the ventilator and out of the induced coma on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Since then, he has been able to talk to his parents and take ?baby steps? with the help of speech, physical and occupational therapy.
No one yet knows what kind of lasting effects Chris? illness will have, but his parents said they are ?cautiously optimistic? that he will make a full recovery. There is the potential for some permanent lung damage, which would require Chris to remain on oxygen, but that is the worst-case scenario, Doug Dekker said.
?I?m not sure what the end result will be, but at this stage of the game, he?s going to live,? Cheryl Dekker said. ?Most of all for him I want life to be back the way it was for him.?
<TABLE cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=0 width=200><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD align=left width=200>
</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD align=left width=200>Courtesy Photo <HR>Chris Dekker, 22, became ill on Oct. 16 and recently regained consciousness after weeks of sedation due to a severe case of H1N1, pneumonia and other complications.</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/main...rticleID=19878