What one North Texas mom thought was an ear infection landed her son in the hospital for brain surgery. It’s been a whirlwind week and a half for Kendra Smith and her son Christopher Bryant.
“It happened so fast. It was surreal to me. It was terrifying,”
Smith said 13-year-old Christopher spent much of the summer swimming, as many teenagers do.
“Then he just came home one day from swimming and say he had a horrible earache,” she said.
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What she thought was an ear infection progressed to a severe headache overnight.
“And then the next morning he woke up with his eye swollen,” Smith said. “He couldn’t even open it.”
Christopher described how it felt as the pain worsened.
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“It felt like a really bad headache, a horrible headache, and my ear was hurting too,” he said. “Before we went in, I could barely talk.”
After a visit to a neighborhood ER, they were sent to Children's Medical Center Dallas.
“I just figured he would kind of be in and out maybe a day and three days later after we got here, he had brain surgery because the infection had spread so bad,” Smith said.
Two surgeries and several days later, they finally had answers. It was a sinus infection – sinusitis to be exact – that had spread to the brain.
Dr. Lasya Challa was part of a team of doctors that worked to save his life.
“Sinus infections are fairly common in children,” she said. “But the complications from sinus infections can be life-threatening.”
In Christopher’s case, Dr. Challa said he’d developed an abscess behind the eye and puss on his brain.
“The rate of morbidity and even mortality is fairly high if this is untreated, so we’re very glad that they came in they did,” said Challa.
Dr. Challa said signs of a sinus infection gone wrong may include severe headaches, face swelling or pain, redness around eyes and eye pain, drainage not getting better, and seizures in rare cases.
For now, and a tube is coming from his head and Smith says she’s missing her son’s curly hair, but she’s thankful for what’s most important – his life.
“He means everything to me. He saved my life, actually,” she said. “So he’s my best friend.”
Christopher hopes to be discharged this week.
Smith started a GoFundMe page to assist with mounting medical bills Fundraiser by Kendra Smith : Urgent Help for Kendra Smith's Son's Recovery (gofundme.com)
For more information about sinusitis visit https://www.cdc.gov/sinus-infection/about/index.html
