A mother's intuition is always right. When her daughter had a medical emergency, Kertease Brabson was not about to let doctors give up... no matter how much they wanted to. The moral of this story is to never take "no" for an answer...
Life Turned Upside Down
In 2018, Kertisha "Tisha" Brabson was living her life just as she'd planned. She had two beautiful kids, had a great relationship with her mother who lived nearby and had her dream home. Things were panning out well for her until tragedy suddenly struck...
Mother-Daughter Bond
Tisha and her mom, Kertease, had always been close. They were always there for each other even through difficult transitional periods of their lives. When something horrible happened to Tisha, Kertease felt like her world was crashing down all around her. She wasn't one to give up hope...
Keeping It On the Down-Low
Tisha began having little small episodes of anxiety. Sometimes, they would paralyze her from doing normal day-to-day things. Her anxiety frequently led to panic attacks. Still, as a young mother of two, she persisted through them. She never told a soul...
A New Feeling
Tisha had thought that she knew what anxiety was until she actually began experiencing it. It was debilitating. “I just didn’t know what was going on inside of my body,” she said. “I just knew something was wrong, I just didn’t exactly know what was wrong.”
Getting a Call
Kertease got a call from one of Tisha's friends. Apparently, she had been acting "crazy." She was reaching for things that weren't in front of her, dancing like she was at a rock concert, and speaking unintelligibly. Understandably, Kertease was worried. Something wasn't right...
Never Forget
Kertease didn't know this at the time, but the moments before the phone call would be her last few moments of normalcy for a long time. Tisha's friend decided to take the mother-of-two to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
Hospital Run
Before Tisha knew it, she was at the hospital. “I don’t remember anything,” she admitted. Kertease dropped everything for that day and rushed to the hospital to be with her daughter. Hopefully, they would get some answers...
No Obvious Answers
After checking Tisha out, the doctors were stumped. There was no direct answer as to what was causing her bizarre delusions. Even though they had no diagnosis, they wanted to keep Tisha in the hospital under observation. Turns out, they made the right decision...
Still Acting Strangely
Even after she was admitted to the hospital and had some drugs in her system, she was still acting strangely. It was as if she was even more delusional, and it appeared that her mental state was getting worse. Luckily, the doctors were closely monitoring Tisha as she deteriorated...
Mother's Intuition
Kertease knew that something was very, very wrong with her daughter. In an interview, she said that she remembers thinking to herself, “Something has taken over and is brewing in my daughter, I just don’t know what.” She had no idea how right she was... This wasn't just a one-time thing.
A Turn for the Worse
Suddenly, Tisha took a turn for the worse. She stopped speaking, eating, and communicating in the short time that she was in the hospital. They had no idea what was going on or why she was going so fast... Then, the situation took a turn for the worse. Kertease had no indication about the future of her daughter's health...
Falling Into a Coma
Tisha ended up suffering from a massive seizure. It was so bad that it put her in a coma. “It was crazy because her body was deteriorating right in front of your eyes,” her mother said.
The Diagnosis...
“That’s your child, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it, and that was really heartbreaking,” she remembered. Seeing her child in a coma was heartbreaking and stressful. Plus, Tisha had two young children who had no idea what was happening with their mom. After a few days, the doctors had a diagnosis.
Deadly Diagnosis
The doctors finally had an answer for Tisha's family. Tisha was suffering from anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. No one in the family had ever heard of that, and it was difficult to grasp what it even was...
Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis
Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is when the body attacks the brain cells. In severe cases, like Tisha's, the person suffering from this disease will experience hallucinations and lose their mobility.
Very Rare
This was extremely rare. The doctors had no idea what to do or how to stop the illness from progressing. The prognosis from other patients wasn't promising, either...
Day by Day
Tisha's family and doctors decided to take everything day by day. They needed to monitor her condition before making any rash decisions. Sadly, she was just getting worse and worse, with no signs of coming out of the coma. “I don’t have no doctor’s background, never been to school for anything, but when it’s your child you’re going to do everything in your power to bring your daughter back,” Kertease declared.
A Horrible Update
Tisha was getting weaker and weaker. Kertease knew that she had a strong, powerful daughter. But this disease seemed like it was too much for her. One day, the doctors told Kertease that her daughter was braindead. They felt that it was time to consider taking her off the ventilator that was helping her breathe and pulling the plug on the machine that was keeping her alive.
No Way
Kertease was not about to let the doctors give up on her daughter. “Doctors said ‘pull the plug,’ ‘she’s braindead,’ things like that,” Kertease later recalled. “I wouldn’t do it.” She felt that it was time to switch medical care.
Moving Hospitals
If they weren't going to help her, Kertease was going to find someone that would. She continued to face the same problem with multiple other hospitals. “We were just going to keep moving her because once I saw the doctors scratching their heads, that clearly let me know they gave up on her and they don’t know what’s going on,” Kertease said.
"No" Is Not an Answer
Kertease knew that it wasn't her daughter's time to go. She told every single doctor that advised her to give up that a mother always knows best. Finally, after searching for what seemed like forever, she met with a doctor that actually had some hope...
Three Long Months
It had been three long months of hearing "no" and "let her go" from multiple different medical professionals. So finally, when she had one say, "let's see what we can do," she was elated. “Every decision that I made was because she’s got two little people that were depending on their mother to come home, and those were her kids,” Kertease said.
A Specialist Enters The Room
Dr. Shraddha Mainali is a specialist in neurological and stroke care. When she took a look at Tish, she was a bit perplexed by it all as well. It seemed like she was having 20 strokes a day. This was news to Kertease...
Dr. Mainali Had Hope
Despite this news, Dr. Mainali wasn't going to give up on this family. “In someone like her condition there is a mortality rate above 60 percent,” she had told Kertease. But she said something different than all of the other doctors: she had a plan.
Brand New Treatment
Dr. Mainali had a plan that was much more aggressive than anything that Tisha had gone through. She and her team was going to put Tisha on an entirely new regiment of medications. The aim was to treat the disease and the seizures simultaneously.
Ready for Anything
Kertease wanted to try anything. She just wanted her daughter back! This was the type of hope that the family needed. It was refreshing to be working with a group of doctors who seemed to care about the results...
Four Grueling Months
Tisha was on the new plan for four long months. Although things didn't seem to be getting better, they weren't getting worse, and that was a great sign. Then, at 5 am one morning, Kertease's phone started ringing. She had the volume on extra-loud and it woke her up with a start. This was either horrible or fantastic news...
She's Awake!
On April 7, 2019, Kertease got the best news of her life. The doctor on the other line of the phone said, "Well, she's awake!" Kertease couldn't believe it. She was informed that Dr. Mainali was also on her way to the hospital and that she should meet them there.
Rushing to the Hospital
Dr. Mainali remembers this moment like it was yesterday. She, too, was dead asleep when her phone buzzed. “One of my residents who was on call at night texted me in the morning and says ‘you won’t believe what I saw today,’ and I was like ‘what happened?’ and she said ‘Tisha is opening her eyes and she’s following simple commands.'”
Tisha Was Confused
Naturally, Tisha was confused when she woke up. She didn't remember going to the hospital at all. In fact, she didn't even know what day it was. The nurse told her that she had been in a coma for seven months. Tisha was shocked. “I was shocked and just appalled that I literally had been asleep since seven months and then I just woke up out of nowhere.”
It Wasn't Joyous For Long
Sadly, when Tisha woke up, she was extremely confused. When Kertease ran into the room, Tisha had no idea who she was. Luckily, over time, her memories began to come back to her. She remembered her mom and her kids. Some things were still blurry, and those memories may or may not come back over time. The brain needs to heal!
High Hopes
Dr. Mainali has high hopes for her miracle patient. “I am quite hopeful in her case that she’s going to continue to do well and hopefully live a normal life,” she said in a television interview.
A New Normal
Tisha knew that things would never go back to the way they were. "I shouldn't even be here," she said. She's thankful for her second chance at life.