After visiting the chiropractor for a neck adjustment last month, a recent Georgia Southern University graduate was left paralysed.
According to a GoFundMe site set up to help with Jensen’s medical bills, Caitlin Jensen, 28, was “ready to live the American dream” when she was taken to the hospital to be treated for four severed arteries in her neck after her chiropractor treatment turned sour on June 16.
‘This damage led to cardiac arrest and a stroke, as well as a loss of pulse for over 10 minutes after which she was revived,’ Linda Foster, organizer of the GoFundMe wrote.
‘Once the doctors were able to stabilize Caitlin, she was rushed to surgery. Doctors were able to repair some tears and placed a stent in one artery.’
Jensen’s body is now paralysed as a result of the incident; she can just barely move her head and open her eyes.
Nearly a week after the incident, a Caring Bridge update on the 28-year-old was made, and updates from Jensen’s mother, Darlene, are sent there frequently.
As long as Caitlin is still in the intensive care unit at Memorial Hospital in Savannah, Georgia, updates from Darlene have been posted almost every day — sometimes even more than once a day.
One of the first updates on Caitlin from June 18 read, ‘We’re still in the 72 hour most critical time frame, and Caitlin is still extremely critical and unstable. Her MRI last night was not positive in the slightest. We know that we are in an uphill battle to save our precious girl, and we are doing everything we can.’
In the same post, Darlene shared Caitlin briefly opened her eyes and she is ‘100% certain that she SAW and HEARD’ her.
A few weeks later Darlene posted that her daughter was ‘progressing with her movements on the left side’ on June 2. Darlene noticed her daughter opening her ‘eyes widely to show surprise, and the left corner of her mouth’ to try to smile.
She wrote, ‘Our favorite girl might be in the battle of her life, but she hasn’t lost her sense of humor. She gave her best effort to smile today, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She was smiling because I began to play one of our favorite podcasts, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. She heard the opening song and ‘smiled’, which made me laugh, which made her do it again. WIN.’
A few days later, on July 7, the page’s administrator, Linda Foster, informed followers that Caitlin was “having a rough week” and urged them not to visit the hospital this week.
Caitlin had to have additional sutures placed around the feeding tube incision because she was bleeding from the area. Also, she had hay fever and low blood pressure.
‘Then that night someone mistakenly used a vibration belt on her chest 9for pneumonia) they were not supposed to be doing,’ Foster wrote. ‘This pulled the stitches loose so surgery had to come back up during the night and stitch it again.’
The following day, on July 9, Darlene reported that Caitlin had breathed unaided for more than eight hours, even while taking a nap.
She wrote, “We are over the moon about that.”
The most recent and last Caitlyn update was published on July 11; three days ago.