16 Year Old Is Brain Damaged From Smoking "Synthetic Marijuana"
Emily Bauer was a normal 16 year old
girl full of light and laughter, until she decided to try and smoke "Kush",
a synthetic marijuana sold under the name potpourri by corner stores and
headshops in the area. Emily figured because her friends were doing it, and all
seemed fine, that she would be okay. She was terribly mistaken, as is thousands
of others who have suffered complications from smoking "fake weed".
Kush is unregulated, and you never know what's in it, since the makers are
constantly changing a chemical in the compound to find a loophole every time it
is outlawed.
Within 15 minutes of smoking, Emily
told her boyfriend that she had a migraine and was going to lay down. She then
suffered strokes which put her in a psychotic like state, where she proceeded
to urinate herself, run into walls, speak gibberish, hallucinate and act
violent. The police were called to help restrain her into an ambulance, where
she was taken to Northwest Cypress Hospital. The doctors put Emily into an
induced coma, where she spent the next 4 days in ICU as they did multiple tests
on her brain.
The doctors quickly found out she had
strokes, and it had caused severe vasculitis and that parts of her brain were
permanently shut down and damaged from the blood vessels contracting and
cutting off the oxygen to her brain-- but they also gave us hopes, one as such
that she could hear us talking, because her heart rate would rise while we were
in the room holding her hand, and stroking the hair off of her swollen face.
After they did all they could do, they
life-flighted her in a helicopter to Memorial Herman Hospital Children's ICU on
Fannin, where the family learned the hope that her blood vessels were starting
to open back up and allow blood to reach her brain. We all grew overjoyed,
little did we know this would become our next nightmare.
The open vessels allowed too much blood
to reach her brain, and the pressure around her brain was a 28 (a normal human
brain is between 1 and 10) and she would need a life or death operation on the
brain immediately or she would die. And the other head of the coin stated that
if, by chance, she made it through this operation, that the state we saw her in
now.. would be how she would be forever -- a vegetable. My mother decided
quickly to give Emily the operation, she signed the papers and gave Emily her
last goodbyes as they wheeled her off to the Adult Neurology ICU of Memorial
Herman and proceeded to drill a whole into her skull where they could insert a
tube to drain fluid from her skull.
The family waited and cried, we had no
idea if we would ever see Emily again, but we knew that even if we did, we will
never have our old Emily back.
Emily made it through the surgery, and
she now lays in the ICU, looking peaceful and heavily sedated, as the doctor
monitors her and the family waits. It could be days, weeks, months; She will
probably never be the same.
I am trying to get the story out about
this so called "legal weed", which corner stores sell and do not card
for because it is considered aroma. Kids and Adults are smoking this and it's
been having serious consequences. Get this story out for Emily, please. So that
maybe our tragedy could help others.
EDIT AND UPDATE TO THE STORY (1-04-13):
Just to give an update on my beautiful
little sister-- A long time has passed. She is blind, mostly paralyzed, but
fighting every day to make progress.
The day we decided to pull her off life
support, just a few days short of her 17th birthday, Emily fought hard to keep
herself going in her vegetable state even without the feeding tube or
ventilator she had been previously attached to. The next morning, even though
she was supposed to pass within 30 minutes of being removed from life support,
my mom walked by her hospital bed saying "Good Morning, I love you."
to surprisingly hear my sister whisper back, in a hoarse voice, "I love
you too."
Since then, she has miraculously
started breathing on her own. On her 17th birthday, even though she couldn't
move, is blind, and could hardly be aware of what was going on around her, she
laughed with us as we made jokes and listened to her soft whisper replies. It
is my little sister shining through, in every way she can manage, with every
ounce of strength.
She fights every day to move a finger.
She fights every day to whisper out a reply to let us know she is aware, and
ready to get out of that bed. She is in so much pain and confusion, but the
family is thankful every single day to still have her alive.
Soon we should be moving her to TIRR
Rehab where she will learn how to see, walk and talk again hopefully within a
few years.
Our mother, has started a charity for
Emily called S.A.F.E. (Synthetic Awareness For Emily). It will go towards
spreading the word about this awful drug and hopefully open up ears and eyes to
the dangers.
SCRIPTURES
PROVERBS 16:27An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as
a burning fire.
2 KINGS 22: 17Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other
gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands;
therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be
quenched.
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