A nearly brain-dead woman survives after being taken off life support
In what can only be described as a miracle, a Michigan woman who was nearly brain-dead following a heart attack started to breathe on her own after she was taken off life support.
Michele De Leeuw, 57, suffered a heart attack at her home in August. Paramedics rushed her to St. John Macomb Hospital in Madison Heights, Mich.
“When my father called me after she was rushed to the hospital, was that he felt that she was dead. It was the most earth-shattering phone call of my young life,” Michele’s daughter, Myles De Leeuw, 24, told NBC News. “It was horrible to see my mother on more IVs and tubes than you can ever imagine.”
After six days in the hospital, the family was informed that Michele had only 5 percent brain function and 25 percent heart function. Doctors told her husband, Karl, “the woman that you know as your wife is not there anymore,” and he made the painful choice to remove Michele from life support. It was the “hardest decision” of his life, Karl told NBC News.
“When we pulled the plug, it was just so sad to start living with the reality that my mom is dead,” Myles told the outlet.
But then she started to breathe on her own.
Doctors, however, did not expect Michele to recover as she did not regain consciousness. They placed her in “comfort care,” where doctors believed she would die.
“Two days later, the doctor called me on the phone and said, ‘We’ve had an unexpected event happen,’” Karl told NBC News.
Michele’s eyes had opened, and two days after that, she was speaking. Two days after speaking again for the first time, she was sitting up in bed feeding herself.
Four months after her heart attack, thanks to open heart surgery, speech and physical therapy, Michele is almost fully recovered. Her husband calls her a “miracle lady.”
Karl and Michele’s 26th anniversary was the day she was finally allowed to come home. Karl says that, together, they’ve been through “richer or for poorer.” Now they’ve overcome “in sickness and in health,” according to NBC News.
Yahoo Lifestyle was not successful in its attempt to contact the De Leeuws for comment.
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