11-Month-Old With 'Super' E. Coli Faces Huge Battle

Little Oakleigh Nance has a GoFundMe page asking for help
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 26, 2015 3:00 PM CDT

An Oklahoma girl diagnosed with "super" E. coli is facing a life-or-death battle—and worse, she's only 11 months old. "With this strain of E. coli, it can get in her brain, it can get in her spinal cord, basically cause her to go into cardiac arrest," her grandfather, Chris Curtis, tells KFOR. "And we heard that it was a very, very scary situation." Her family says it's not clear how Oakleigh Nance got the infection, which appears resistant to antibiotics, but the CDC is investigating. It all started when Oakleigh was born premature at only 3 pounds and "started off on 4 liters of oxygen," according to a GoFundMe page to help pay her medical bills. "In the NICU, they used to call her Miss Sassy because of her ability to express her displeasure with her circumstances," the page says.

Then she went home and was fine for months until a 104-degree temperature and severe urinary tract infection sent her back to the hospital. Since then, she's been diagnosed with moderate ASD and pulmonary stenosis of the heart, stage 3 kidney reflux, and "a dangerous, antibiotic resistant strain of Pseudomonas," says the GoFundMe page. Now doctors are planning a 4 1/2-hour procedure on her kidney, which is functioning at 22%, to possibly prevent other infections. "I know that God is in control of all else, and when I think about what’s going on in her life, I think about my faith in God," says Curtis. "That’s what sustains me and gets me through it." (Read about a brain-eating bacteria that has returned to Louisiana.)

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