Stephanie Lavoie
  • Female
  • Laguna Niguel, CA
  • United States
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About Me:
I'm a widowed first time mother. My husband passed suddenly and unexpectedly when I was five months pregnant.
About my Loss:
The day we found out the gender of our daughter, my husband had to leave the Ultrasound appointment to go to the Urgent Care. Three days prior he cracked a molar. By day three, an abscess formed on his throat, obstructing his airway. They intubated him, admitting him to the ICU, and even performed emergency surgery to remove the abscess after the airway obstructed, also removing the tooth that caused the infection. Five days later Anthony was sitting up in his chair doing fine. He was breathing on his own, using the bathroom on his own, responding to the antibiotics, and generally starting to look like we were on the mend. The doctor's came in to examine him when they made their rounds, and were discussing moving him to a less critical unit. Within 20 minutes of that conversation, his airway became compromised (again) and they were struggling to secure an airway (again) because his throat was so swollen. Within a few minutes they lost pulse, and performed CPR. They got his pulse back quickly, and went back to trying to establish an airway. Again, they were having difficulty trying to get the fiber optic scope down his throat, and they couldn't get a tube in to provide him with oxygen from the ventilator. Immediately after, they lost pulse for a second time. This time, however, it took between 20 - 30 minutes for them to get the pulse back. Meanwhile, they are still trying to establish an airway via tracheotomy. They did manage to trach him, and get his pulse to come back but he was without oxygen for a long time and the brain can't survive without oxygen so they didn't know the extent of the damage. That week was the longest of my life. Just waiting for him to wake up (he never did.). Anthony received (3) CT scans, an MRI, EEG, and on Friday 2/12/2016 we got the results back from the doctor. The CT scans continued to show edema (swelling) in the brain that increased over each scan. The MRI showed anoxic brain injury to the entire brain. The EEG confirmed what the MRI showed. At this point he retains some brain stem reflexes (taking additional breaths, heart beating) but the neurons that tell our brain to fire correctly have been destroyed for him. The things that make us who we are, able to recognize our family, able to walk, talk, think, all of these processes are gone from the extensive damage to the brain from when he lost oxygen. Friends and family came to visit and said their goodbyes. A week later we took him off life support. On 2.19.2016 I lost my soulmate after he was pronounced brain dead. We were married only nine months beforehand, and were expecting the birth of our beautiful daughter in June. In truth, I haven't grieved for my husband. Since I was pregnant, and suffering from scary high blood pressure (220 / 110 -- they were scared I was going to stroke out in labor) I've spent the last eight months ignoring my pain. And now I have a brand new baby and feel like I can't pick myself up off the ground. I cry all the time. I don't know who I am without my husband, and I'm scared that if I don't start talking about my grief and loss to people that can actually relate, that I'm going to lose myself forever.

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It's been a long time since I've posted a Blog on here but I am not looking forward to Christmas I am notBecause the people should be here it's no longer hereSee More
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