On Monday night, Bethany and Todd McKenney experienced a parent’s worst sense of déjà vu.
They were following their 18-year-old son, Nathan, who was being wheeled down the hallways of the pediatric intensive care unit at Akron Children’s Hospital. He had been diagnosed with a collapsed lung, a very bad case of the flu and was possibly going to be placed on a ventilator.
Fifteen years ago, the couple’s youngest child, 14-month-old son Noah, had contracted the flu while undergoing chemotherapy treatments for brain cancer in Philadelphia. He was placed on a ventilator and later died from complications from the flu.
"Watching the things that were happening to Nathan, it looked like the things that had happened to Noah. It felt like I was kind of reliving my worst nightmare," recalled Bethany McKenney, a Summit County councilwoman, on Thursday afternoon.
But Bethany and her husband, Barberton Municipal Court Judge Todd McKenney, who is a former state representative, Summit County probate judge and current pastor of the Akron Chinese Christian Church, have always leaned on their faith.
"I don’t know that we could have survived losing a child without God holding us up and giving us whatever we needed for each day," said Bethany.
"As scary as it is, I never wanted to walk down the halls wheeling my child down the hall to the ICU ever ... that’s kind of my valley of the shadow of death. But we do have that underlying knowledge that ultimately we know God is going to take care of us and he loves Nathan even more than we do," she said.
On Sunday morning, Nathan, a senior at Manchester High School who attends Portage Lakes Career Center’s Fire Academy, woke up with a sore throat.
Later in the day, his chest felt a little tight, Bethany said.
Around 2 a.m. Monday, Nathan still wasn’t feeling well. Bethany gave him some medicine. She called the doctor first thing Monday morning. A flu test came back negative.
Nathan was coughing a lot, so the doctor suggested Bethany stop to get a chest X-ray.
By the time they got home, the doctor called and said Nathan had a collapsed lower left lung and needed to go to the emergency room right away.
Todd rushed to the hospital, and as Monday afternoon and evening progressed, Nathan "was declining before my eyes," having trouble breathing, said Bethany.
The doctors put Nathan on oxygen and performed another flu test. This time, it was positive for influenza-A.
"They couldn't figure out why he was getting worse and sounding so bad and struggling with his breathing," said Bethany. "They said ‘Now we know. We have the answers. It’s the flu.’ "
Bethany said there was never discussion about whether Nathan could have the COVID-19 coronavirus since he hadn’t traveled anywhere or been exposed to anyone. Additionally, Nathan did not get the flu shot because he had a severe allergic reaction when he first received one when he was younger. Bethany said she will research whether changes in the flu shot would allow Nathan to get it.
On Monday, doctors said they needed to admit Nathan to the ICU for his influenza and collapsed lung, which is called a pneumothorax and occurs when air leaks into the space between your lung and chest.
It was possible they would need to put a chest tube in if the pneumothorax didn’t improve, and also intubate him to prepare him for a ventilator.
"They were holding off and they don’t want to intubate somebody because that’s a hard road" and a ventilator can make a pneumothorax worse, said Bethany, who is a registered nurse.
The couple also had to decide how much to tell their daughter, Selah, 19, a freshman at Ohio State who knew that Nathan was in the hospital, but not how serious things were. Selah had midterms this week and was scheduled to come home this weekend for spring break.
Bethany wrestled with what to tell Selah, who remembers Noah and was 5 when he died.
Bethany updated Selah and put her on speakerphone with her brother Tuesday morning.
"She said ‘I love you’ and Nathan said ‘I love you, too,’ and that was really the last words they said before they intubated him."
A few hours later, when the doctors said Nathan needed time to let the medicines work and his body heal, Bethany decided to ask for prayer.
"I’m hesitant, because we’re both public figures, to put anything in the public eye," she said. "But we were balancing our privacy with just wanting prayers. In the end, I’m glad we did put it on Facebook, because so many people prayed. And I feel like that’s when he started to turn the corner and things started to get a little bit better and better, and we were just making steps in the right direction."
Todd said the couple was expecting the pneumothorax to get worse and that Nathan would need chest tubes because of their experiences with their younger son.
But a leader from his church came and prayed for the hole to begin to close.
Said Todd: "I thought to myself. ‘Well, that’s a big prayer.’ And then that’s what’s been happening. What we expected never happened. What we were afraid of didn’t [occur]. The X-rays have continued to show it’s closing on its own. That has felt like such a remarkable answer to prayer."
Nathan on Thursday was taken off the ventilator and was mostly still sedated and talking a little, but confused and tired, Bethany said.
It’s possible he may need to go back on the ventilator, but Thursday afternoon, he was breathing room air, she said. By later Thursday evening, Bethany said Nathan was alert and texting with his friends.
Said Todd: "He’s breathing easier, so we’re breathing easier."
Bethany is unsure how long Nathan will need to be in the hospital, but she is also the organizer of a communitywide baby shower Sunday in Barberton for Jacob and Hannah Merton, who are expecting quintuplets.
"If he’s doing a lot better by then, I might take off by then," Bethany said. "But I haven’t left the hospital. I’m that mom. I’ll play it by ear. I do want to have a backup, just in case."
Beacon Journal consumer columnist and medical reporter Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or https://ift.tt/1JyjOyb and see all her stories at https://ift.tt/2NbCgI0.
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