On the morning of Monday, December 9, Nailah and her mother Sandy Chatman, took Jahi to Oakland Children’s Hospital. Chatman, Jahi’s grandmother, is a nurse in Kaiser Oakland’s Surgery Department with over 30 years of experience in the medical field. On that day she took an active role in watching the progress of her granddaughter.
“After the surgery she (Jahi) was fine. She went into the recovery room. She was alert and talking and she was asking for a popsicle because she said her throat hurt. As part of the procedure, she was meant to spend the night in ICU,” said Sealey. “When she got moved to ICU there was a 30 minute wait until any family member could go see her. Upon entry they saw that there was way too much blood.”
“She lost four pints of blood. She had to have four blood transfusions. She had two litters of blood pumped out of her lungs, not including what was in her stomach,” said Sealey. “There was an enormous amount of blood and we keep asking is this normal? Some nurses said I don’t know and some said yes. There was a lot of uncertainty and a lack of urgency.”
Dr. Thebner explained complications can arise during a tonsillectomy because the affected area is highly vascular meaning that there are a lot of blood vessels in the area.
“Anytime you go into surgery it is unusual to have these complications, but they are real despite the fact that they are low risk,” said Dr. Thebner. “This was a highly unusual complication.”
Back in the ICU, Jahi quickly took a turn for the worse.
Sealey said when Chatan noticed that her granddaughterÃs oxygen levels were dangerously low she called for help.
Jahi went into cardiac arrest. The medical staff began doing chest compressions in an attempt to revive her and they tried different medicines to clot her blood but nothing seemed to work.
On Tuesday CT scan revealed two thirds of Jahi’s brain was swollen.