By Rachel Applegate & Mia Allen
Focus
Midland HS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1st Place
Division 2, News Writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many people remember March 13 as the last day before school was called off for COVID-19. Senior Raegan Booth remembers it differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She asked her mom how cool it would be if Barack Obama was the MHS principal and if the doctors would get him a birthday cake. She had these unusual thoughts while in the emergency room after developing septic shock. Her liver was damaged and was cutting off blood to her brain. It was her brain\u2019s way of saying \u201cHey, I\u2019m dying\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Septic shock is a bacterial infection that causes the blood to become toxic. It\u2019s a result of an inflammatory response in the body due to an infectious agent, which can lead to widespread organ failure. When septic shock first appears, the person can experience a range of symptoms such as a fever, sore throat or abdominal pain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor me it was strep throat, so it got into my blood and started for things to become narcotic and critical,\u201d Booth said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Booth started feeling symptoms of septic shock one day before going to the ER. If she and her mom had waited any longer to receive help, Booth would have died. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jennifer Jordahl, Nurse Practitioner of Internal Medicine, explains how serious\u00a0\u00a0septic shock is.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s actually associated with a high rate of death,\u201d Jordahl said. \u201cMost certainly, patients who are seen as soon as they start developing symptoms are the ones who have the greatest chance for survival.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Booth had an exploratory surgery in the emergency room to see what the problem may be. The doctors noticed tissue damage and beginning-stage organ failure. They knew she needed immediate medical attention. There was nothing Mid-Michigan Hospital could do for her though, except call for help. Mott Children\u2019s Hospital at U-M was the first to accept her, and she took a helicopter to Ann Arbor that night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe happened to land almost right during a shift change so the night time staff, the doctor in charge of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit\u2019s first specialty was septic shock,\u201d Raegan\u2019s mom, Holly Booth, said. \u201cSo of all the places in all the world, and all the people to land with, we landed with the best people to figure it out. That\u2019s why she\u2019s still here.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to the negative impact septic shock could have had on Raegan\u2019s body, many medical procedures were performed. These included IV antibiotics, testing for white blood cells, and a peripherally inserted central catheter line to access the veins and heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou would have the intensivist within the ICU department, if the lungs were infected you would need the pulmonologist on staff, if the kidneys were infected you would need the nephrologist on staff. It really takes an entire team to take care of the patients as each organ in the system becomes affected,\u201d Jordahl said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holly did not leave the hospital once while Raegan was in care. She described that while being there she did not feel any emotions due to the situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re in such a state of shock yourself of unreality that your only thought was I don\u2019t have time to think. I don\u2019t have time to blink. I don\u2019t have time to breathe because if I do any of those things she might be gone and I will have missed it,\u201d Holly said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During this challenging time for the Booth family, the medical staff made Raegan feel incredibly comfortable. Raegan and Holly were both amazed at the care she received. She said that everyone was so kind to her, and she even became close with her PICU doctor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey are literally superheros,\u201d Raegan said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After 36 days in the hospital, Raegan was discharged. Although she said it was weird to be home, she was glad to be released. She was most happy that she got to spend her seventeenth birthday at home, saying it was her best one yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was very special to me because I honestly didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d get to see that birthday,\u201d Raegan said. \u201cThat was the best birthday because I was just so grateful and thankful to be alive.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of the amount of surgeries Raegan had, she was left with a large scar across her stomach. Instead of hating it, she has decided to embrace it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve grown to accept it because it now is part of who I am; it tells a story, all scars tell stories,\u201d Raegan said. \u201cSomeday I might get a flower vine tattoo around it to embrace the beauty of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raegan and Holly both agree that this experience has changed both of their perceptions of the world. They both agree that life is short, and it can\u2019t be taken for granted. To take all necessary precautions for her health, Raegan is an online student this school year. Although she misses her friends, she knows that her health is more important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs bad as things seem, there\u2019s always a reason to find a silver lining, the world doesn\u2019t really change, it\u2019s your perspective,\u201d Holly said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This story will focus on an environmental, health or science topic. It can be a straight news story or an investigative piece. Submit a PDF of the print page(s) on which the story was published or the URL to the story on an online news site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Rachel Applegate & Mia AllenFocusMidland HS 1st PlaceDivision 2, News Writing Many people remember March 13 as the last day before school was called off for COVID-19. Senior Raegan Booth remembers it differently.\u00a0 She asked her mom how cool it would be if Barack Obama was the MHS principal and if the doctors would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65,4],"tags":[176,21],"class_list":["post-5090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environmentalhealthorscience-nw","category-nw","tag-2020-21","tag-division2","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/MHS_14.png?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/MHS_14.png?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Jason Laplow","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=11"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/MHS_14.png?fit=1612%2C1781&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1k6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}