By Dede Caza
FULTON – March of this year, My 15-year-old daughter, Dilyn Caza, is a sophomore at GRB High School. She was an active, healthy young lady in the high honor role with distinction. In early college health and science program for nursing at CCC Fulton campus. And very active in sports Soccer, Basketball, and is a pitcher for varsity Softball. On March 5th, Dilyn woke me up at Midnight that she had been vomiting and had a severe headache. She tried to lie down and couldn’t because of the pain of the headache. Then things started happening, and we knew it was time to call 911. When the ambulance came, they didn’t seem very concerned.
The process seemed to take forever. Dilyn was moaning and nonverbal. No one thought she had a stroke, but she definitely had some serious things happening. She couldn’t stand or sit in a chair. She slid right out of it onto the floor. When her Dad, Mike, tried to put her in the chair. When we arrived at upstate Golisanos, they still did not think stroke but knew something definitely was wrong. The ER doctor said we like to put your daughter in medical sedation for intubation to keep her calm for the many tests she is going to be having to find out what’s happening. It was terrifying for myself and my husband. What was happening to our little girl? Then, we were quickly taken to the pediatric PICU, where a team of doctors were picking our brains to figure out what the heck was going on. Dilyn had blood work, X-rays, and a cat scan. Nothing really stood out. Then, a neurologist came in and examined her.
Dilyn was moving her head, touching the back of her neck, running out of the room, coming back, and starting to say something. I said could it be! And he told me to stop talking and listen. Your daughter has a blood clot in her brain. It’s in her basilar artery. We need to act fast, or she’s going to die, and she could die trying to get the blood clot out. So you need to sign here if you want the procedure done. We said yes, yes, save our daughter. Dilyn went for the procedure, went to the chapel to pray, and prayed hard. The doctor told us it was successful, but Dilyn was not out of the woods yet. The doctor apologized for being short with me, and I said you didn’t owe me an apology. I owe you a Thank you for saving our daughter. It was a very long night, and Dilyn did well through the night. Mid-afternoon, she started weaning off sedation to see how she could breathe on her own. She did great, then took the tube out. 3rd day, she was sitting on the side of the bed with OT, and Pt had her walking the hallways with two therapists, one on each side. It was a little difficult for Dilyn. She was really wobbly. She was so much stronger the next day, holding her head up. Every day was crushing it. Dilyn spent 3 1/2 days in PiC -U, and then we moved to room 6 on the pediatric floor. There’s a story about that room, too, for us, from when Dilyn was four years old. Dilyn spent ten days in room 6 on the 12 floor. Then they came in to tell us that Dilyn was ready for rehab and we would be on the rehab floor probably until late April or early May. Dilyn was in rehab for one week, and Doctors told us we were ready to go home.
We were so shocked when doctors told us in front of Dilyn that she was one lucky young lady. It’s very rare for a Healthy person with no health problems to have a stroke and to survive a stroke that most people don’t, and to have very little debilitation is nothing but a miracle. 3 1/2 weeks and walk out of the hospital. Dilyn is doing very well with her physical Therapy and is slowly getting back into her classes at school. We are Truly blessed that I can share Dilyn’s story and not be a sad story. Dilyn currently has to go to many doctor appointments and tests to find answers to why this happened.
Thank you, Dede Caza