July 2023 Special Needs Living Akron/Canton

Personal Perspective

One tough cookie Chelsea Briggs! A story of resilience

Story by Andrea Huff with photos by JCuret Photography

Fighter, tenacious, strong- these words describe Chelsea Briggs, but just barely scratch the surface. You see Chelsea has been a fighter since the day she was born 33 years ago. She wasn’t breathing after birth but luckily the doctors and nurses were able to get her breathing. The next day the doctor heard a heart murmur, but didn’t jump to any conclusions as a lot of babies have a murmur that corrects itself over time. Well, by her 3rd day of life, everyone could tell something was wrong and it was discovered that she had a rare congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome which is when the left side of the heart is extremely underdeveloped, and the right side must pump blood to the lungs and the rest of the body which cannot be sustained. She had some other heart anomalies, and her conditions required her to have 3 open heart surgeries to correct what they could. Chelsea’s first surgery was at just 9 days old. Another one at 10 months old resulted in Chelsea having a stroke and leaving her unable to speak. Her last open-heart surgery was at 4 years old. She has battled heart failure and other heart-related issues throughout the years but was always a friendly, happy, hard-working person. People often didn’t know the heart battles Chelsea was fighting because she always kept moving and was very active, especially outdoors. If she had a task or chore that she liked, she would work nonstop to complete it.

Unfortunately, even with the very best efforts of her family, most of whom are in the medical field, Chelsea contracted Covid-19. On September 10, 2021, Chelsea was taken to Aultman Hospital and then needed to be transferred to The Cleveland Clinic. Covid was attacking her body and she needed a ventilator. She was in the ICU for the next 7 weeks, clinging to life. This virus was catastrophic to Chelsea causing her to suffer from sepsis, an anoxic brain injury (occurs when the brain is deprived of oxygen and neural cells begin to die), an acute kidney injury requiring dialysis, bowel obstruction with sepsis again requiring her entire large intestine to be removed and an ileostomy (surgery to create an opening in the abdominal wall through which digested food passes) to be placed. Chelsea also had bleeding in her abdomen after surgery and contracted a rare respiratory fungal infection on top of everything else. These effects of Covid on her made her reliant on a wheelchair and completely dependent on family and healthcare staff. Finally, after many rescheduled discharges, Chelsea was able to be transferred to Aultman’s rehab floor where she stayed there for another 7 weeks. She struggled with ventilator weaning and infections but on December 15, 2021, she was finally discharged home under the close supervision of her family in which 5 immediate members are nurses, so she is in good hands!

She is thankful that her father, mother, 2 sisters, and brotherin-law are all nurses at Aultman, where they could check in on her often.

Chelsea participates in in-home rehab and continues to work hard every day. In addition to this, she has recently begun to participate in Equine Therapy at Whispering Grace Horse Farm. She is currently able to be off her ventilator 1-2 hours a day and can stand with assistance for periods of time throughout the day. She still battles infections, but this strong, tenacious fighter keeps fighting!

Chelsea’s family is very close, in fact, her sister Hailea nominated her for this article. She says that they could never get through this without family and her family considers it a joy and honor to have the wisdom and ability to care for Chelsea at home. Currently, the family is looking into ways to incorporate hiking back into Chelsea’s life now that she utilizes a wheelchair. They made modifications to their home so that they can easily get Chelsea outside when the weather is nice. Her family hopes that she gets stronger every day and hopefully completely off the ventilator soon. Chelsea’s mom Heather also added some advice;

1. “Always be your loved one’s advocate. If it feels like something needs to be changed or improved, research it and speak up.

2. Never put limits on your loved one. Our loved ones are unique, they have no limits on what they can do. Love your individual for who they are!”