With respiratory distress and toxic shock syndrome, doctors said Audrey's survival rate was 5 percent.
By the time she was admitted to intensive care on Tuesday evening, Audrey says she was probably more in shock than she was scared. Her blood pressure was still low, as were her platelets, and "my labs were just a mess." She had been diagnosed with pneumonia, as well.
Marc flew back from Augusta, and he was by her side Wednesday morning. By nightfall, Audrey's condition was deteriorating quickly. She had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, and her lungs were filled with fluid. She also was diagnosed with toxic shock syndrome.
Audrey was struggling to breathe and struggling to say one word at a time. She was scared and didn’t like what she was hearing – and not just from the doctors.
"I could hear the cracking in my chest,” Audrey said. “I could feel it.”
Then came the news that the doctor wanted to intubate her. It was about 4 a.m. on Thursday, and Audrey kept begging for more time because she wanted to talk to her sons when they woke up that morning.
"I was really afraid I was never going to wake up," she explained.
The last thing Audrey remembers with any certainty is calling her parents and telling them that she loved them. She called her brothers, too. In maybe the hardest conversation, Marc and Audrey essentially said their good-byes, as well.
Audrey, meanwhile, was fading in and out of consciousness, even passing out mid-sentence because she didn’t have enough oxygen. The doctors decided they had to get Audrey on a breathing machine -- and fast.
This is wrong, Audrey told Marc. We can’t do it.
But it was necessary.
“If we didn't do that, she would have died,” Marc said. “It all turned out unbelievably well. “
Audrey was sedated but alert enough that she could be awoken because doctors wanted her to keep coughing to dislodge the fluid in her lungs. Although she doesn't remember doing it, she also was able to communicate with the nurses by writing notes on her cell phone, apologizing for arguing with them the previous night.
Thursday night, her doctor decided to turn Audrey on her stomach in a pronate position and she began to improve. Her face was nestled in a cradle, and she has a rectangular spot of what doctors believe to be necrotic tissue a little more than an inch long on the left side of her chin.
Not until Audrey turned the corner did doctors tell Marc her survival rate was 5 percent.
"Just the respiratory distress syndrome alone was a 40 percent mortality rate, and then with the toxic shock syndrome, shutting down my other organs, each organ increases the mortality rate," Audrey said. "So they knew it was bad, but it really wasn't until I was getting better that he then said just how bad it was."
Marc had taken Audrey's photo while she was in the hospital. He did it because he wanted his wife to understand how dire the circumstances had been.
"It took her a good couple of weeks, but she wanted to see it, and I think that was a big step in her … well, I don't want to say her recovery, but I guess her mental recovery, just to see that," Marc said.
"She's spoken to me about it. We've talked, and just not in depth, but she really understands that she's very lucky to be here, which is good from her perspective and mine, too. It's done a lot for me."
Audrey remembers finally waking up on Tuesday morning, April 7, a week after she first went into the hospital. Marc was leaning in close to his wife. All her family was there.
Groggy, Audrey told her husband, “Gosh, you have four eyes.”
She told Marc that she loved him, and he said the same. Together they tried to fill in the gaps in her memory. Mostly, though, they just savored their second chance at life.
Audrey was discharged the following Friday. A bout of pleurisy landed her back in the hospital two days later as doctors made sure the sharp pain in her ribs wasn't a pulmonary embolism. The improvement has been marked ever since.
Harvey and Ollie actually ignored Audrey the first afternoon she was home. Harvey was the first to crack, bringing his ball to his mother, who was laying on the couch, and saying it would make her feel better.
"I think they were punishing me," she said. "But they actually do it to Marc. Every time Marc gets home from a trip they kind of ignore him for the first hour or so. It's not a long time, but I think it's sort of their way of saying how dare you leave me. ...
"It was a little bit hard, though, to be at home and not be able to be mom. It sort of felt like being benched at the big game. I was there but I couldn't really do anything for them. I couldn't pick them up. It was just good to see them. I missed them a lot."
Mom is back, though. Fatigue is still an issue but Audrey knows she will get stronger. She used a walker for about three days, developing confidence, speed and concentrating on the heel-to-toe motion. Now she can even navigate stairs by herself.
When Harvey and Ollie clamor to be picked up now, Audrey can do it. She got the go-ahead to drive a car again last week, so some degree of independence has returned.
