Ashleighs Angels
This site has been created as a means of contact for family, friends and supporters of Ashleigh Collins and her family. On December 5th 2005, The Collins family had their world turned upside down when their three year old daughter, Ashleigh suffered an accident at home.
Ashleigh’s Angels A foundation of friends supporting Ashleigh Collins and her family
Welcome to Ashleighs Angels
[mailto:gandmjoseph@optusnet.com.au]
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Ashleighs Storey...
Ashleigh was like any other adventurous 3 year old girl. She loved to run climb and play with her dolls and teddy bears. She loved Hi 5 and The Wiggles and loved to dance around with her brothers. Most of all she loved to get up to mischief. She turned 3 on Nov 5th and celebrated with family and friends. Exactly one month later on December 5th 2005, Ashleigh's life was changed forever when she had a seizure and near drowned in the bath. Ashleigh required full resuscitation and was rushed to Gosford Hospital. She was intubated and put on the ventilator and then flown by Telstra CareFlight Helicopter to The Children's Hospital at Westmead. She was admitted straight to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). After 12 hours she had the breathing tube removed and she was breathing well on her own. She began to open her eyes for short periods. On the second and third days she started to mumble incomprehensible sounds and on occasion said a few words. She was however unable to control her limbs. We started to have hope that her brain was going to be OK. We were wrong. Ashleigh spent 3 days in PICU and was then transferred to the General Ward. On the 4th day she began to spasm and became very irritable. She did not speak again. Ashleigh wavered in and out of a deep sleep. Although things had seemed promising when Ashleigh started opening her eyes, repeating words and mumbling; her condition started to deteriorate. Ashleigh started having constant seizures and painful muscle spasms. The spasms were so severe, Ashleigh's body would bend backwards into a "C" shape, and she would scream and cry in pain. Ashleigh had an urgent MRI scan which showed large areas of damage. She was then transferred back to the PICU and sedated. We were told that with this type of brain injury, it is the secondary injury from the brain swelling and release of neurotransmitter chemicals that causes more damage. Unfortunately this secondary injury is not preventable yet safely in children. Ashleigh spent a further week in PICU, mostly asleep with sedatives. Ashleigh was then transferred to the neurology ward (Commercial Traveller's Ward) where she would spend the next three and a half months. Gradually the sedative drugs were weaned and Ashleigh remained on anticonvulsant rugs for her seizures and drugs to prevent spasticity in her muscles. On the 29th of December ( 3 weeks after her accident) we had a family conference and the team told us that Ashleigh's prognosis was not very good and that there was not much prospect for recovery. We were devastated. However when we returned to Ashleigh's room she smiled and giggled for the first time since her accident. She was reminding us not to give up and that she was still in there somewhere. This gave us renewed hope and energy. At first Ashleigh had no head control at all, but this slowly returned with a lot of therapy. Ashleigh still had a lot of extra movements, and very little control of her body. We were unsure how much vision she had as Ashleigh did not look at people or objects and appeared to look right through them at times. This type of blindness is called Cortical Vision Impairment. Ashleigh had several EEG's of her brain during her hospital stay. Initial EEG's showed a significant slowing of her brain waves, and the presence of seizure activity but they improved somewhat over time. Slowly Ashleigh was able to take pureed food by mouth, and eventually, three months after her accident, Ashleigh was taking all her food and drink by mouth. Ashleigh had splints made for her legs to enable her to stand. With a lot of assistance, Ashleigh was able to initiate a stepping motion and could take some steps with full assistance. By the time she left hospital she could roll both ways and could walk fully supported a few metres. Ashleigh had a very intensive therapy regime in hospital with physio, OT, speech, hydrotherapy, music therapy and play therapy. We took Ashleigh home for weekend gate passes and this was when it became obvious how different not only Ashleigh was, but also how different our lives would be. We finally went home for good on the 30th of March 2006!!! This was just the beginning of our journey. With that "Ashleigh's Angels" were formed by a group of close friends of the family who have been working tirelessly helping Ashleigh and her family.
[Web Creator] [LMSOFT]