it was a very weird day because I woke up and I wasn't feeling good
we were going to the river with a bunch of friends and we were just going to have some fun.
When I jumped in I immediately knew something was wrong
someone like squeezed my heart and I couldn't breathe.
I was gasping for air. I got out. I sat on the side. Everybody could
tell that something was wrong but nobody knew what was wrong.
I was at home getting ready to go to work it was the last day of school. We still had to report
to do our cumulative folders for the end of the year check and i got a phone call from her little
brother saying mom Shelby's not feeling good. Can you come pick her up? By the time I got
from our house to the river which was just across town they had to carry her
and put her in the car. She was too weak to even walk to the car to get in on her own.
I called my husband. I said Brian you need to get off work now. Brian came home from work and they
went to the doctor's office. They did a bunch of tests on me and they were like something's wrong.
We don't know what it is we can't figure it out here they called the ambulance they took me to
the New Braunfels hospital and did some more tests and that's about as much I remember from that day.
I met them at the doctor's office right as the ambulance was pulling up. I went inside
they had Shelby hooked up to an EKG and they said that was the third one they had taken and
every time it was different. When the paramedics got there they did another EKG from their machine
again. It was completely different every test the ER doctors at Santa Rosa New Braunfels did.
They couldn't figure it out but she kept declining her oxygen rate kept dropping. Then they put
her on the full mask it still kept dropping. Finally they're like ma'am we need to intubate.
I guess my body was just so tired i either fell asleep or something and then it just went dark.
They told me they were going to transfer her here to Children's Hospital
and i was like okay that's the best place for her and then i heard them call airlife
and my heart just sank Brian and i just looked at each other and we just started
crying right there in the middle of the New Braunfels emergency room.
We landed here at 12:03 am on May 29th they unloaded her and that's the fastest I've ever seen
anybody move they rolled her through the doors and i didn't see her again. I sat in the waiting room
on the fifth floor by myself not knowing what was going on with my daughter in that time. I later
found out she had coded four times twice on the way here and she was hooked up to ECMO. In order
to save her life found out that when they had hooked her up to ECMO a blood clot had been thrown
from her heart and it had lodged behind her knee and her left leg. Dr. Nieto and his wonderful team
of amazing doctors and nurses and i don't know how many people were working on my sweet girl
spent over 18 hours trying to dislodge the blood clot from her leg they finally got it, but they
didn't know how much damage had been done. At that point on Saturday they called in Dr. Magnabusco
amazing lady she sat down with me mom to mom and said look i'm gonna try everything in
my power to save her leg but her life is more important. I said 100 percent true.
I was like I can't lose my girl we did therapy hot pressed, and cold pressed massages trying to
get the blood flow and the everything to go back to the lower half of her leg. We finally made the
decision that it wasn't working it was too late so on June 4th Dr. Magnabusco did the first surgery
and they amputated the lower half of her leg and we were hopeful that that was going to be
all that needed to be done we waited four more days and on June 8th we did the second and final
amputation surgery above her knee. As a mom all you want to do is see your baby's eyes open and
know that even though I knew she was still with us.
Know she's still with you hear her voice again. See her look at you. Have her hold your hand,
but at the same time I knew that I had a lot to tell her and it was going to be so hard
as a mom to tell her so hard as a 16 year old to understand what all she had been through for the
past 17 days. That she didn't know she had been through her being so active being in color guard
marching band, a member of the choir, a member of our church group. She had been accepted to march
in bands of America honor band the Tournament of Rose's Parade it was going to completely change
her life. I knew that not only as a teenager but for the rest of her life she was an amputee now
and she had no idea I wake up andI still think we're in New Braunfels because that's
my last memory is okay. I'm still at the New Braunfels' hospital it's the next day.
I slept for three weeks and I had no clue, so I woke up and doctors are asking me questions.
I can't talk. Like my voice is just barely a whisper and they're trying to ask me - What's
your name? Where are you? Do you know who this is? Do you know where you are?
Is that and i'm finally like it's the next day I'm in New Braunfels and they're like no you're not
it's three weeks later and you're in San Antonio when she first opened her eyes. I just cried
she tried to write and of course her muscles were so weak. We couldn't understand what she was
trying to write but I just kept telling her mom and dad are here and we're not going anywhere. So,
I told her about the cancer diagnosis first I was like they figured out what was wrong with you.
I was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer and I had two tumors behind my kidneys. We waited
about not too long couple hours let her process that before we told her about the amputation.
I'm lying in a hospital bed. I'm in San Antonio. I can't talk it's been a few weeks
and nobody was telling me anything else and i was like okay that's it I'm like I have cancer
we'll deal with it i'll take the meds for that blah blah and then my foot started hurting. I
told my mom I was like hey mom my foot's hurting can you rub my foot and she starts
to rub my right foot andI go no it's not that one and I just cried because she didn't have a foot.
What do you mean it hurts? Like just rub the foot. Like what's the big deal? And she's like Shelby
they amputated your leg while you were asleep. I'm like what
I couldn't have asked for better nurses for better doctors for anything better in this hospital. They
were amazing they made my two months here a joy. And when I left I was sad to leave them but I knew
that they were always going to be there for me and I was going on to bigger and better things.
The nurses and the doctors and the child life specialists and PT/OT speech,
nephrology i mean wound care -everybody had a hand in Shelby's care and they also had a hand
in my care. I couldn't have survived 62 days in this hospital at my child's bedside without the
wonderful staff and the angels that work here. Well my original goal was to be out of the
hospital before I turned 17 and O got out of there July 28th. My birthday is August 18th
and I was like I want to walk the stage at graduation. I want to be able to
walk across that stage like every other kid in my graduating class with no crutches with
nothing. I want to for that 10 seconds of graduation be a normal kid Shelby Shelton
As a mom, the experience that Shelby went through and our whole entire family went
through over the last 12 months is unimaginable. To see her strength and to see her determination
and to see her walking and fighting she's living proof that miracles happen
and it's because of the people at this hospital that i have my baby girl still you.