Anyone in the Seattle neighborhood...

Or, anyone who's not and knew nigglesworth and hasn't been kept in the loop, I'm re-posting this here from her Aunt's web blog about the situation.   

"Nicole Clementi fell from the third story of a building early in the morning of August 16, 2010. She has been unconscious at Harborview Hospital ever since."

Nicole has had a slight fever for the last couple of days and is requiring more pressure support from the ventilator.

Wednesday we had a meeting to discuss her MRI results and general prognosis. Members of her care team including the attending from general surgery/trauma, patient care coordinator and a professor of neurosurgery were all there. They explained to us that what had not showed up on her CT scans was the degree of damage to the center of her brain. She has a severe Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI.) This means that the axons connecting one hemisphere of her brain to the other were stretched to the breaking point when she hit the ground. Her corpus callosum is almost entirely shear damage. There is very little likelihood that she will have an outcome better than a persistent vegetative state.

We met as a family and discussed what Nicole would want in this situation. We all agreed that she would not want to continue long term if she wouldn't be able to wake up. In an afford to honor her wishes we are going to try to avoid that.

We have decided to try to allow as many of her loved ones as possible to visit before Wednesday. We will be taking her off of the ventilator sometime Wednesday. Her doctors do not expect that she will last long after that. We are still harboring some hope, but it is tempered by what we have been told by the medical team.

If you want to visit her, she is in the 9th floor TSICU in the Maleng Building at Harborview. She is still under enteric precautions, so you will need to wear a gown and gloves while seeing her. These are on a cart outside her room. Please be respectful of the other families who are here while visiting."

I went to highschool with Nig. I found out on Sunday what was going on, and tried in get in touch with the few others besides our HS group that may want to know what was going on. But I figured this would be a good way to get the word around. If anyone else knew nigglesworth, or lives in the Seattle area and wants to help spread the word before Wednesday for anyone else who loves her and wants to stop by, that'd be appreciated.

Love you, Nig. ♥

-Manda