Meghan Warren died last month, just four weeks before her
wedding.
On Saturday, the 29-year-old Shelby Township woman will walk
down the aisle with her father and exchange vows with Patrick Neeme, the love
of her life.
The hospital medical team called her Miss Miracle.
Now, she’s the miracle bride.
“It’s turned into so much more than just a wedding,” Warren
said. “It’s a celebration of (Neeme) being so great and a celebration of me
being alive.”
The trouble started July 14 when Warren experienced chest pain
that hurt so badly she was crying. She drove herself to Beaumont Hospital in
Troy and was given pain medications.
Warren was suffering from a problem with her gallbladder. But
she later stopped breathing and turned blue, likely the result of a sleep apnea
event — something she’s never had before, her parents, Dave and Debbie Warren,
wrote in their online diary,www.meghansmiracle.org,
which documents their daughter’s nine-day hospital stay.
Her heart stopped — for up to 19 minutes, her family said — and
the medical staff had to resuscitate her.
Dr. William Devlin, director of the cardiac intensive care unit
at the hospital, said a 19-minute heart stoppage would defy most logic for
survival. He said it’s likely there was not a complete lack of heart activity
the whole time, but there was probably a lack of blood flow to the brain.
Warren underwent a therapeutic hypothermia protocol, which has
been used in about 100 cases at the Troy hospital and another 200 or so at
Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak when there is a concern about lack of oxygen to
the brain from a cardiac or respiratory cause, Devlin said. The protocol cools
the body to help protect the brain, he said.
Warren’s body temperature was slowly reduced to about 90 degrees
over 12 hours, said Dave Warren, 58, of New Baltimore. He said the process
involved blankets circulating cold water and even grocery-store-size bags of
ice being placed on his daughter, who was sedated and unconscious.
The process, he said, was “intimidating to watch.”
Meghan Warren stayed at that colder temperature for 24 hours
before being slowly warmed back up over the next 12 hours, her father said.
Loved ones waited with tablets and smartphones, looking up
terminology and trying to learn as much as they could. All the while, they kept
thinking, “She’s supposed to be married in 3½ weeks,” Warren said.
Meghan Warren, who aspires to be a fourth-grade teacher, doesn’t
remember what happened. She spent what she described as a long, peaceful dream
in Hawaii, a locale she visited with her family when she was a teenager. She
heard someone say she was going to be OK. She knows it was God, she said.
Outside the hospital walls, thousands of people prayed for the
bride-to-be, even in other states and countries. A prayer vigil was held in
Warren.
Meghan Warren said she believes those prayers saved her, and
she’s alive for a reason — though she’s not sure yet what it is.
A few hours after warming up, she was able to follow some basic
commands from doctors.
“Every few hours, it was like something new, something hopeful,”
Dave Warren said.
He described the experience in the online diary: “The progress
during day 5 was like the miracle of a rose opening its bud.”
Within three days, Meghan Warren was off the ventilator and
walking on her own. And she was focused on marrying Neeme, 28, on the four-year
anniversary of when they met online.
“I knew I was going to get married on Aug. 10,” she said. “I’m
gonna walk down the aisle and marry my fiancé. There was no question in my
mind. I was determined to marry on Aug. 10.”
Devlin didn’t say Warren’s full recovery was unusual, but said
“the results are not the same for everybody.”
“In every case (like hers), you think this truly is a miracle,”
he said.
Meghan Warren’s gallbladder wasn’t removed because of everything
she went through, but she’s being monitored and has changed her diet — good-bye
beloved coffee, hello fruits and veggies — to keep her gallbladder in check.
She also didn’t have health insurance, and her family is using
the online diary to try to raise funds for her medical bills.
As she continues to recover, Warren is supposed to be resting —
but it’s tough with her pending nuptials. There’s a dress and tux to pick up, a
manicure and pedicure to have, a rehearsal dinner to attend.
Dave Warren said 190 family members and friends are expected for
the wedding at St. Mary Queen of Creation in New Baltimore. But so many others
— like those strangers who prayed or heard about his daughter’s story — just
want to stop by to see her walk down the aisle.
“It means a whole lot more than it did,” he said of walking down
the aisle with his daughter. “We’re not just celebrating a wedding now, we’re
celebrating a life. It’s going to be very special.”
Contact Christina Hall: chall99@freepress.com
DETROIT FREE PRESS
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