Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers as we try to get through this difficult time. As you know we were able to go to the funeral home yesterday to make the arrangements and Liz and I went to the church today to set everything for the funeral mass up. I want to especially thank the people who have stopped by my moms house. Jeff and I have been staying here with Gracie, as well as Liz and Phil. My Dad has been over often as well. It is a lot easier being around people, and is nice to be able to look through pictures and share funny stories about Andrew. I cant begin to express how much we all miss him already. Andrew had a heart of gold, he never complained about anything, even while dealing with all his medical issues. Andrew touched so many lives in his short 19 years, more than most do in a lifetime.Andrew will be missed by so many. The neighbors, the Romanczyk's, Donahue's, Allens, all stopped by yesterday as well as Jessica and Terry, Uncle Matt and Aunt Markie, Jessica stopped by again today, along with a visit from Jenn and Annie (Old St. Raphael's Friends). One of my best friends Tonia stopped by today also to drop off a huge bin of scrapbooking supplies to be able to get the poster boards done for the funeral. Words cant express how greatful we are for all of you.

Andrew with his Dad at Houghton Lake.

Andrew holding his trophy fish.

Andrew holding his only niece Gracie for the first time.

Andrew fishing off the dock at Houghton Lake.

Andrews thinking "The trophies mine!"

Andrew as a baby, with our neighbor Chelsea.

Even though at this point Andrew had lost control of his left arm and leg he still was able to go tubing, without any complaints of how hard it was.

The link below is the funeral arrangement for Andrew.



http://www.neely-turowski.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1541139&fh_id=10676

Unfortunately i have some devastating news to share with you all. On Friday at the family meeting, there were many doctors, the head of neurology, the x-ray techs, the ICU doctors and all of the doctors who have been treating Andrew since the beginning of his hospital stay. They covered all of the MRI scans with us and basically said they cant stop the seizing. Every time they try to lower the dose of medication (Coma meds) he starts seizing again right away. On top of that, all the damage the stroke did, and the 19 hours of seizing when he had his Grand Mal seizure and the seizures he had on top of that, that if he made it through this crisis his quality of life would be very very poor. The brain was damaged in all parts except a small portion in the frontal lope. The part of the brain that controls speech, swallow, sight, hearing, cognitivity, ect.. all of this was gone. At this point we were terrified for Andrew, we couldn't imagine him having to wake up like this, on life support, on all these machines and IV's not being able to communicate with anyone, not being able to see anyone, hear anyone. The doctors wanted to prepare us that at any moment Andrew could pass away.

Unfortunately last night after one  hell of a fight Andrew passed away at 9:36pm. All of Andrews close family and friends were with him. He passed very peacefully. There is no doubt in my mind that Andrew is in Heaven right now with his Grandpa Don playing Yahtzee and teaching him how to play Domino's. Andrew is the strongest person I have ever known, and I can not describe how hard this is going to be for our family and his many many friends to get through. Thank you all for caring so much for my brother. Andrew touched so many lives in his 19 years, and was loved by so many people. My sister will be posting the funeral arrangements.

Just wanted to post a small update, Andrew is stable right now, no changes, its the weekend, so nothing gets done at the hospital over the weekend which we have all learned. I will keep everyone posted. Please continue to pray for Andrew.

I thought i would just share that Andrews fever seems to be under control and they have given him antibiotics for the infections. Nothing else has changed. There is supposed to be a family meeting tomorrow between my family and all his doctors to discuss where we go from here basically..

Small Update for now..

Its Wednesday afternoon, i did not go to the hospital last night but as far as i know, Andrew was given some Propofol for twitching and i think he was given Pentobarb, Versed and Depakote boosters not hooked to IV. And that has seemed to help. Andrew does have a high fever and there is infection somewhere, as far as i know nothing has changed with the fever or infection, im not sure if they know where its coming from or not. I was unable to go last night or tonight because my baby has a fever so i had to skip part of work today, hopefully everything will be good and i will be able to go to the hospital tomorrow night.
Anyways, some GOOD NEWS!!! Andrew's muscle biopsy came back he tested negative for MELAS!! Now his neurologist thinks he has Wilson's disease possibly.. who knows. It sounds like the doctors are all guessing and putting him through the ringer until he tests positive for something. Wilson's disease sounds nothing like what is going on with Andrew if you ask me, but who knows, im not a doctor! I will post some info on the blog about Wilson's Disease when i get a chance. It sounds like if it is caught early enough before organ damage is done this disease is treatable. Who knows how long he has had this, if it is this and who knows how bad it is. Im not sure what the doctors next step is, i am going to try to talk to my parents tonight and gets some updates and see how things went today and if the doctors have said what the plan is...
For right now, Andrew is still in Coma (the doctors said they would be worried if Andrew had not woken up by today but i think that has changed since they have given him more of the coma meds, not sure yet though). He is still on feeding tube and ventilator..

Continue to keep praying, Andrew is strong, he will get through this.

Pray, Pray and Pray some more!

As many of you have read on the facebook page, Andrew started seizing again yesterday afternoon. They gave him a couple shots of Versed, which did not stop the siezing. They ended up giving him his Depakote through IV instead of feeding tube (since his stomach wasnt absorbing the feeding tube, which they knew) and it seemed to stop the seizing. While my mom and Rose were there last night it started again and he was given a couple shots of Pentobarb and Versed and it stopped. He is going backwards, we want him off these meds and to wake up, these meds are putting him to sleep. I havent got any updates yet today, i will make sure to update when i hear.

Its Monday, my first day back to work. I just sent my Dad a text saying i was going to take the day off from the hospital today and go tomorrow, figuring everything was ok since i had not heard anything. Well, my Dad text me saying Andrew is seizing again, which is really really not good. I dont know what the plan is, im waiting for phone calls and am probably going to be leaving work shortly to go to the hospital. Please say a prayer.

Its Sunday evening, i just got back from the hospital. Andrew is now off Dobutomine (pressor to keep blood pressure high enough while in coma). He had a fever last night, that came down on its own. Still had a lot of movements on EEG but they took it off because his skin was satring to break down and they need an MRI and can't do that with the EEG. Still continues to breathe over the vent here and there. They stopped feedings due to bloated stomach and got residuals in feeding tube from stomach. They gave him a suppository hoping for bowel movement. Considerings trophic feeds (5cc/Hr) just to keep things moving and keep use of the tube. Also started him on colace (stool softener) and miralax (laxative). Neurology checked reflexes which were responsive (left better than right). They also checked pupils and eye movement and said they were more responsive than yesterday which is good. They also checked his brain stem (they did this by injecting cold water into his ear in hopes of eyes moving to ear of injection, they didnt get the response they were looking for but will check again later. No evidence of seizure activity right now. They took off EEG and washed his hair so he looks a little more normal now. The electrodes can cause skin breakdown which we noticed on his forehead. They also cant get an MRI with this on as mentioned before. Doctor said he is making progress from yesterday but still isnt doing some things they were expecting. No gag reflex but he did jerk a little bit the last time they suctioned the vent when i was there. They said he is making some slow progress and not to worry until there is an absence of day to day progression. Central line has some clotted blood stuck so it is useless right now. So they will "TPA" it which means stick some fluid in there to break up the blood. Chest x-ray showed a little more congestion than yesterday so they are turning the "PEEP" up on the vent to help the fluid out of the lungs and help vent work better. They also gave him a breathing treatment for the same reason. Shortly before i left today they gave him an enima because he still had not made a bowel movement.

So with all that said, please continue keeping Andrew in your thoughts and prayers. I keep telling him how many people are praying for him and that he needs to wake up and get better!

(sorry for the misspelled words i have neither the time or energy for spell check)    =)

Matt and Markie are sitting with Andrew now, i will update more if there are any changes.

It's Saturday evening, Liz and I just got back from the hospital, we were there from like 12:30 to 5, Dad and Marty were up there for the morning shift. Then Mom and our cousin Jessica are there now. This morning while my Dad was there he said the EEG was spiking quite a bit and Andrew was breathing over the ventilator. His breaths were in the 20-21 area, which is really really good. Last night the highest it went was 13, they have him set on 10 breaths a minute, when Liz and I first got there today he was on 8 breaths a minute. They adjusted Andrews positioning and checked his stats and after that, he quit breathing on his own completely, the vent was doing all the work. I was sitting next to him rubbing his hand talking to him while Liz watched the EEG monitors and they would spike when i talked to him, and when Liz was talking to him when i was watching the screen, so we think he can hear us. The nurses all talk to him too and explain what they are doing. One of the signs that he is waking up is when they suction his breathing tube, he will start to cough eventually. He is not coughing yet at all when they suction him so far.

The doctors have also started to reduce the medication that is speeding up his heart rate and blood pressure through the central line as he starts to wake up. He is still on all seizure medications and Dobutamine. They were able to increase his calorie intake, they are giving him more through his feeding tube. He is still restrained to the bed because we don't want to take the chance of him waking up and pulling his tubes out. They have the restraints pretty loose and he does look comfortable minus all the shit taped to him and tubes going in and out of him. Today his nurse, Casey was changing his position and flipping him every 2 hours, she did have one other patient besides Andrew today, so i don't know if they think hes more stable then before or if they are short handed. The resident doctor came in and chatted with Liz and I for quite awhile trying to answer all our questions. He said the coma meds, Pentobarb and Versed are still in his system. Those meds have a half life of 30-50 hours. Andrew was taken off them about 30 hours ago so they are still about 40-50% still in his system. It could take until they are almost out of his system for him to wake up, they said every patient is different and every ones metabolism is different. He did say Andrew is looking better today than yesterday. They said the spikes on the EEG and him showing us he could breathe over the vent was a huge step in this long process. We were a little concerned he hasn't tried to breathe over the vent at all while we were there, so hopefully he will start to do that again when mom is there tonight. The doctor said if he isn't awake by Monday or Tuesday they will start to worry.

We need Andrew to wake up very soon, and hope his seizure activity has completely stopped or they will have to put him back in coma. The longer he is on the meds to induce coma the less chance of him waking up. Hopefully he will wake up tonight or tomorrow and be able to breathe on his own, they still are not able to tell us how much more damage this seizure has caused on top of the stroke damage. He was seizing uncontrollably for about 18 hours. They did give him the max on the coma meds as well so it could take until Monday or Tuesday for him to wake up, however we are hoping for sooner. We hope he is able to come off the vent as soon as possible after he wakes up and hopefully they will be able to do the G tube instead of the feeding tube. They did say they will do another swallow test after he wakes up, but before this all happened he was refusing to eat his pureed diet.

On that note, please continue to pray for my brother. I will update more tonight or tomorrow.

Last night when me and my mom were at the hospital Andrews EEG started showing some spikes, which basically means he is waking up a little bit. He is off all coma meds. The ventilator has him doing 10 breaths per minute, and he was sneaking in little breaths here and there, the vent would read 12 or 13 which means he is trying to breathe on his own. Once we noticed some activity we said something to his nurse who called in the doctor. They checked his stats and moved him around and suctioned out his nose and mouth. Once all that was done he was no longer showing any signs of waking up and my Dad just text saying everything is pretty much the same since last night.  My mom did ask if they will keep him somewhat sedated when he wakes up because he has all these tubes in his nose throat and everywhere else. She said no, they want to see what he can do, they want to make sure he can breathe on his own once he wakes up.. so i guess we just wait. I hope im not there when he wakes up, its not going to be pretty. They do have his arms restrained so he cant pull everything out once he wakes up.
More later..

Its Thursday night, me and my mom just got home from the hospital. Gracie and I are staying the night here again tonight. Andrew is still stable. The preliminary reading of the cat scan results were good, they compared it to the MRI taken right after his stroke when he was admitted originally and it showed no further damage or bleeding in the brain from what is going on with the seizures. They are weining him off of the Versed which is one of the meds that is inducing his coma. When Liz and Phil got there they weined him from .4 to .3 and they will wein him during the night, but he wont start coming out of coma until they start weining him off the Pentobarb. He is also on Dobutamine which is keeping him under as well. He is also on his seizure meds regular dosage. He is also on Vinpat, a new seizure medication that is relativly new to the market. The doctors made sure Andrew has his own private nurse who has a lot of experience and has worked with coma patients before, as his case is probably the most involved case they have in the ICU at this hospital currently. His nurse he had during the day today will be his nurse tomorrow, she was very good (not very friendly) but knew exactly what she was doing and was in the room most the day checking his stats. His oxygen is 91 which is low, they are going to do a chest x-ray tonight to make sure the vent is in the right spot, they said they think its a little high. It was very very hard to sit there helpless watching him hooked up to so many different iv lines and monitors and a ventilator. We did find out that Andrew is doing nothing for himself right now while hes hooked to the ventilator, we thought before since they would turn it down he was doing part of the breathing, but we were informed the vent is doing all his breathing. They were also concerned when he was hooked to the catheter, it was nothing but blood, they thought there was internal bleeding coming from somewhere but after they flushed it out they think it was just irritation from the cath.
Please continue to keep Andrew and our family in your prayers, we hope no seizure activity starts once he is being weined off these meds or they will have to keep him in coma longer.
The plan for tomorrow is Dad going up first, then Liz and Phil, then me and mom, i will update when we get home.

Liz and I came back from Houghton yesterday. Liz and Phil arrived home first, they went straight to the hospital to drive my mom home. They put Andrew in an induced coma but the seizure movement still wasnt stopping, they had to insert a central line to increase his heart rate and blood pressure to give him more seizure meds. He is currently on a ventilator, feeding tube, EEG monitors, its not going to be easy to see him like this, that is for sure. Now he is stable, the did get the seizure movement to stop and his EEG hasnt spiked. They are inducing him every 12 hours until he shows no seizure activity for 24-48 hours then they will very slowly reduce the medications to get him to come out of coma unless grand mal seizure starts again, then they will keep him in coma because they cant seem to get it under control with any medications. They still dont know if Andrew had another stroke or if this was just a grand mal seizure. He is scheduled for an Cat Scan today. My Dad and Marty were up at the hospital early this morning, then Liz and Phil went and relieved him, now me and my mom are going to be leaving in just a minute to go up to relieve Phil and Liz.25 Sorry if i repeated any information and spelling errors, between facebook, texts, blog and phone i cant remember where i was at..
Since Andrew is in ICU only immediate family (My Mom, Dad, Liz and I) can see him right now. I will definitely let everyone know when that changes, i know there are a few people who have been asking to go up.
Update more later.

Its Wednesday July 11, Liz and I are still up at Houghton Lake. We are currently waiting for our mom to call us to give us all the inormation. Things have taken a turn for the worse with Andrew. Last night around 12:30am, he had a Grand Mal seizure the doctors could not get under control. They gave him a small amount of the medication given to him back when he was originally airlifted to Childrens back years ago that induces Coma. The small amount they gave him they compared to a Xanax, with that and the other medications hes been on they did get him to sleep. We just got a text from my mom, its about 1pm, that the Grand Mal started again and they could not get it under control. They are inducing Coma cuurently which will require a ventilator im sure. Then its a matter of praying Andrew will wake up. Please pray for him, and our parents. I will update more when i know exactly what it going on.

Sorry for the delayed update...

I just wanted to tell everyone thank you for your thoughts and prayers, they are very appreciated. As many of you know our family takes a vacation once a year to houghton lake. Obviously my mom did not come this year, Liz and I were not going to come either but our family convinced us to come with them to try to clear our heads, and since Andrew is having a hard time with visitors right now anyways we did decide to come. Liz and I will be up north (with the rest of the family) until this coming Saturday. We are keeping in touch with my parents every night getting updates. The last time i spoke with my mom, Andrew was having some issues with the medication they put him on to calm him down (Thorizine) (Spelling is probably way off, sorry). Friday night he had a fever and was hallucinating. My parents have been talking to the doctors to try to come up with something we can do, but they were having a difficult time because no one tends to work in the hospital on weekends i guess.
They were also talking about inserting a G Tube because Andrew hasnt eaten. They were having some issues with his cooperation with some tests they needed to do before hand. Then they were discussing doing a feeding tube until they were able to do the G Tube but Andrew wasnt having it. He wouldnt let them put the tube down his throat.. so, i will talk to my mom tonight when they are home from the hospital and will update later in the week, she did leave a comment under my last post with an update as well.
Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers.

I thought I would add some pictures of Andrew to the Blog, hopefully we will see him happy like this again, and soon! =)

This is Andrew with his cousin Jessica at his Graduation.

Andrew with Uncle Matt and Jessica, Christmas 2010.

                                                                 Andrew, Christmas 2011

Andrew, Uncle Dave, Terry and Uncle Mike, Houghton Lake 2009

                                                            Andrew, Christmas 2010

Still No Visitors Please.

It’s Tuesday. Not much has changed since my last post. Right now everyone thinks its better to let the nurses and doctors be with Andrew, every time he sees one of us he gets agitated and needs to be sedated. They have been sedating him every 3-4 hours with Adivan. The nurses keep him calm somehow, whenever he sees anyone he’s related to he tries to get up and leave. I think all of us under estimated how strong Andrew is, he is physically strong as an ox! It took 8 people to keep him in his bed, two of which were huge men.

They were supposed to do Andrews spinal tap, ophthalmology examination and biopsy yesterday all while he was put under. They ended up just doing the spinal and ophthalmology exam, they are going to do the biopsy today now.

 It seems like everyone is on the same page with trying to get all his procedures done as quick as possible, get some results as quick as possible, confirm his diagnosis so we can move to the next step. A psychologist is supposed to visit Andrew this morning to do an evaluation and to see if there is some kind of medication that will help him cooperate with us. Speech pathology can’t even go in there and talk to him or do an evaluation because he has his mind set on escaping from the hospital whenever he is not sedated.

 We are worried about what is going to happen with Andrew once he is released from the hospital. Who knows how long he will be in the hospital, if it’s at the rate they do their tests and get their results were probably looking at a really long haul. Hopefully some kind of medication will help Andrew focus and work on being able to communicate with us so he can come home with us. In the condition he is in now, there is no way either of my parents would be able to take care of him at home.  It’s hard to tell if he knows what he’s doing and he just wants to leave or if he has no clue of what’s going on and is losing his mind.  It’s like he’s trapped in his own body and thinks he’s ok, but he’s not. We don’t even know if he knows he had a stroke. Liz and I were talking last night about IF it is MELAS Syndrome, life expectancy is 5 years from when your “Stroke like symptoms” start. And now the doctors are saying he had one in 2007 that no one knew about, it showed on his MRI in 2007 and no one brought it to anyone’s attention. They were looking for other things in the MRI in 2007, we don’t know if the doctors missed it or what happened, but none of us knew he had a stroke in 2007 until his doctor he has now reviewed past MRI pictures. How does something like this get over looked?? So, if he does have MELAS Syndrome, does his life expectancy start from 2007 or 2012? I know I am jumping the gun, but these are our thoughts and something I think we need to prepare ourselves for. We are praying that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, this is just so unfair. Andrew is so young, he has not experienced so many things in life.

 Please keep praying for him, we are hoping to get some results back soon so we can move forward, even if they could absolutely say that what he has is not MELAS, I would be good with that.

More Later...

Bad Night.. No Visitors Please.

Monday July 2, 2012

It's Monday, I am at work this morning, which is pointless since my mind is not here right now. Thank God my boss is on vacation this week so we don’t have patients and it will be easier to go if i need to. Andrew had a bad evening and night last night.  

It sounds like all day he was doing pretty good, he enjoyed his visit with Uncle Mike and Trich. Uncle Matt had him laughing, his real laugh, we haven’t heard that since before this whole thing started, so I can imagine it was good for my parents to hear. Grandma Lois had a visit, Andrew was happy to see her; he showed her more affection then anyone so far. Jessica came for a visit as well. Andrew enjoyed all the pictures Jess showed him.

When Mike and Trich left Andrew tried going with them. When Uncle Matt left he followed him to the elevator and tried leaving. My mom had to have a couple guys go get him and put him in a wheelchair and wheel him back to his room. It seemed like ever since he tried getting on the elevator his mind was set on “I’m getting the hell out of here!”

He seemed anxious the whole visit with Grandma, he wanted her to take him home. He kept waving at her like, “Come on Grandma, let’s go!”

 (I am going to try to get the story straight from what I was told by my mom, but I wasn’t there).

Grandma left the room while Andrew was in the bathroom, she went to the bathroom down the hall. When Andrew was done he noticed Grandma had left, he pushed his way through my mom, screaming and went out to the hall. Once again he darted straight for the elevators and once again had to be escorted back to his room. My mom had told his nurse earlier he seemed agitated and anxious to get a sedative to relax him more. The nurse said she needed a doctor’s order so they were waiting on a sedative for quite a while.

 In the meantime Andrew was sitting on the couch in his room and he tried leaving, once again. Grandma was able to move to the other side of the room, and Mom, Dad and Liz were trying to restrain him. A staff team was called in to help, it took about 6 staff people, my Mom, Dad and Liz to hold him down while they waited for a sedative. He pulled out all the stops, kicking, hitting, and biting, he fully tried getting out of there. They were able to give him a sedative but his adrenaline was pumping so hard it wasn’t taking effect. The restraints were put on him so he couldn’t get out of his bed and a nurse came in to try to talk to him. My mom said this nurse had a very soothing voice and wiped his forehead with a cool rag and was able to calm him down enough to let the sedative take effect. He calmed down and eventually went to sleep. The staff told my Mom, Dad, Liz and Grandma to go down to get a coffee and clear their heads for awhile, that they would take care of Andrew. Once Andrew fell asleep they were able to say their goodbyes and my Dad stayed the night. They also had to have someone else in the room to watch over Andrew since he was restrained to the bed.

Late last night they agreed to take the restraints off Andrew because they didn’t want him to wake up, be restrained and this whole thing start all over again.

 I just got a call from my Mom, he is awake and he did get very agitated as soon as he woke up trying to leave again. As far as I know right now my Dad is in bed with Andrew trying to keep him contained. They are waiting for the doctors to take him for his biopsy, spinal and ophthalmology exam, which he will be put under for.

 For right now my parents have asked that only immediate family visit him until this is under control. He is going to be out of it most the day today anyways after they put him to sleep for his procedures. Honestly  I am kind of relieved that I wasn’t there yesterday to witness what my family did, it is absolutely heartbreaking and I don’t know if I could have watched. What makes everything so much harder is we don’t know what is going on in Andrew’s head right now, we can’t even communicate with him. I wish this could just be over, what did this poor kid do to deserve this? He’s been through so much already, its just unbelievable.

 I am going to go up to the Hospital after work, and will update when I get home.

Once again, please keep Andrew and my family in your thoughts and prayers.

Uneventful Weekends...

Sunday, July 1, 2012

It's Sunday, around 3pm. I am still debating if I am going to go up to the hospital today, i might take a day off. I talked to my Mom. Andrew slept good last night, I brought Gracie up there for a visit last night, he really enjoyed that. Aunt Markie and Uncle Matt also stopped up for a visit yesterday.

From what I gather today is a pretty uneventful day. Mom spent the night with Andrew. He had a couple visitors this morning, Uncle Mike, Trich and Lola. Andrew tried getting on the elevator with them when they left, i guess my mom had to call for some help because he was getting physical with her. I don't really blame him, i would be trying to get out of there too. I guess there was also an incident with the wheelchair last night, he tried to take it for a ride around 11:30pm. He has no fear of his IV's and everything he is hooked to coming out. He gets tangled in his IV all day long. It is actually kind of good to hear he is trying to get out of bed and do things, now if only he could communicate with us. Uncle Matt and Aunt Markie went up for a visit today, they are there right now. I was told Andrew played a pretty good game of hangman with Uncle Matt to the point he was laughing! He has not laughed since he has been there, so that was also good to hear.

Sunday is an uneventful day for the hospital, everyone must be off for the weekend. The surgeon did come in and speak with my mom today. The plan for tomorrow is to take him to the OR for his Spinal Tap, Muscle Biopsy and Ophthamology examination. The results from the MRI also came back which showed no further damage than the initial stroke, which is good.

My sister Liz is taking Grandma Lois up there around 4pm, and Jessica said she may be stopping in today as well. Since not much is going on today it is probably a good time to let all his visitors in and stay home. I don't remember this hospital being such sticklers on visitors in the past! I thought I was going to have a separate pass for Gracie yesterday!

When I go to the hospital tomorrow I will fill in any details I missed for today and update for tomorrow.

Please keep Andrew in your thoughts and prayers.