Parker’s Stories

Parker attended Lucky Ladd Farms summer camp the week of June 6 – June 10, 2022 and had the opportunity to care for and work with baby goats. On the last day of camp, they had a family day, where our whole family went to go meet the goat that Parker had been taking care of and to see all of their camp activities. During that time, we were all in the pen with the goats, holding and petting Parker’s baby goat. The following day, Saturday morning June 11th we left town for our summer family vacation to Florida. We got into the rental around 4pm and Parker immediately started having diarrhea. He rapidly worsened in just a few short hours. By 6pm he was refusing dinner, no appetite, and diarrhea continued. By 10pm he had a 102 degree fever and severe abdominal cramping and profound diarrhea. I immediately bleached the bathroom he had used and brought him in the bedroom with me to quarantine him and sent my husband, Paul, to take care of our other two children, Riley and Hudson, who were 4yo and 2yo at the time, knowing that this was very likely contagious and I was trying to mitigate the spread of disease.

That Sunday he must have had diarrhea 30+ times. I continued to have him hydrate with small sips of water knowing that if I had more fluid going in his body then leaving his body hopefully I could support him with hydration and stay out of the ER. I then started with symptoms myself about 16 hours later after his symptom onset on Sunday morning 6/12. We are unclear if I was a primary infection because I had exposure to the goats on Friday, or if I was a secondary infection from being the caregiver for Parker.  Either way, my symptoms were a very fast onset. At that point, we both were bedbound. By Monday 6/13 Parker had bloody diarrhea and we were much worse – I told Paul we had to either go by ambulance or he had to drive us to the nearest ER which was 30 minutes away. While in the ER, I told the ED physician that Parker had attended farm camp. We both agreed that this was consistent with an infectious diarrhea due to the bloody presentation, and most likely from the farm. However, at the time, there was also an outbreak of hepatitis from strawberries and therefore that was on the differential. We both got IV fluids and labs. Parker had lab abnormalities. Stool culture ordered. They were ready to discharge us after IV fluids. I said that he needed more IV fluids. He had had multiple episodes of diarrhea just in the time that he received the first bag of fluids. Then after more fluids they were ready to discharge and again I said absolutely not, he needs to stay so they were open to putting him in the observation unit for 24 hours. ER doctor consulted the on-call pediatrician who agreed he needed to stay.

Parker continued to drastically worsen the next day, we are talking screaming with rounds of 10/10 abdominal pain, pale, diaphoretic, he almost passed out several times, with no relief of symptoms. Ultrasound was negative for intussusception. I asked for immediate transfer to the Children’s Hospital in Pensacola on 6/14. While waiting for the ambulance I had to check back into the ER and get another round of fluids. The 90 min ambulance ride was very stressful. A different ER physician convinced me to do one dose of Imodium (an anti-diarrheal) for Parker to hopefully not have diarrhea on the ambulance ride. That was the worst decision. You do not give anti-diarrheal medication to a patient with infectious diarrhea. I know this and yet I still let him persuade me and I regret that. I do think it made Parker much worse. Upon arriving to Children’s and being assessed they started morphine for pain control. This only eased the pain for a little.  He continued to worsen before getting better. At some point the stool sample came back positive for shiga toxin producing E. coli, 0157:h7, shiga 2. I was relieved we had an answer and therefore some direction. However, I knew this could get really bad and there was risk of HUS which head risk of kidney failure, brain damage, cardiac arrest.  He couldn’t eat and hadn’t eaten anything for days. It wasn’t until they threatened to place a PICC line that he had a cracker which then caused a wave of horrific abdominal pain and more diarrhea. It was an up-and-down roller coaster of pain and emotions and then happiness followed by a setback. It was grueling and daunting and exhausting. At one point in the middle of the night he had horrific pain, screaming crying, body shaking trembling on the toilet, passing bloody diarrhea, and when I got him back in the bed, after changing his pull-up (my 7yo add to revert to wearing pull-ups because the diarrhea was so horrific) he immediately closed his eyes to sleep, keep in mind he was so incredibly sleep deprived because the pain kept him up in the diarrhea kept him up and in the bathroom at all hours of the night. At some point soon after the nurse came to check him and do vitals. However, I watched the monitor as his heart rate started to drop. She couldn’t get a blood pressure. She tried one leg, then the other leg. It wouldn’t read because his blood pressure was too low. I said his name, he didn’t respond. I said it louder, he didn’t respond, I shook him, he didn’t respond. I did a very hard sternal rub and he didn’t respond. Heart rate still dropping. In that moment I thought he was coding. I thought to myself, what role am I going to have on the code team? Should I push the code button? Will I perform chest compressions on my own son? Will I run the code? It is all a blur and I am so grateful he pulled through. His heart rate started to increase, he moaned to get away from my aggressive sternal rub. Still to this day I think that maybe he went into a cardiac arrhythmia, I will never know. We are so blessed that Parker did not present with renal failure and then he did not require dialysis. His hemoglobin and hematocrit got low but never required transfusion. 

Day 8 was the first day he started to turn the corner. He was discharged on 6/20 after 10 days of acute illness.  He had lost 8 pounds. He looked so pale and cachectic. He had lost his muscle and the joy in his face. However, Parker had the biggest smile when we left the hospital! We were greeted with a welcome home firetruck escort from the Spring Hill Fire Dept and signs and were surrounded by neighbors and friends. God brought us through that storm.  From this experience, Parker’s Promise was born, in hopes of helping families going through these hospitalizations, educating families on the dangers and risks, and making policy change to protect our children from this pathogenic bioterrorism agent.  When I was pregnant with Parker, just a week before he was born, I heard very clearly that Parker was going to move mountains.  I had no idea what that meant at that time… but I do now.  This is Parker’s testimony, this is our purpose.  We will continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus and show up for others in our attempt to be the light and the change and God shall have the glory.

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Morgan and Paul Stine