Pregnant women in coma after severe swine flu, wakes up after 45 days to see her one month old son

New York, July 21: For the first few months of her second pregnancy in 2013, Melissa Barvels, 36, was happy and healthy. 

But at 25 weeks, the New York-based mother contracted a severe strain of swine flu before being placed in a coma for 45 days, during which time she gave birth to her son, Scotty.

‘It was weeks before Christmas in 2013 and I had just finished dinner when I turned to my husband Scott and said I wasn’t feeling well at all. I never realised what was to come.’ Mrs Barvels told Daily Mail.

Mrs Barvels, who couldn’t get out of bed, wasn’t eating and was freezing cold, was told to ‘sweat it out’ by her doctor… but after four days she was sent to her local hospital where she was told she had pneumonia.

‘I hadn’t had it before so I never imagined I’d be so sick. When I was in there I was just hoping to be out within two or three days. I wanted to be out before Christmas so I could spend it with my husband Scott and son Christopher, then five,’ she said, as reported by dailymail.co.uk.

‘I was on oxygen and I remember waking up the next morning on December 23 and messaging my husband asking whether the hospital had called him.

‘He replied with “Yes, I’m on my way” and other than being told I wasn’t doing well, that’s all I remember.

Mrs Barvels’ pneumonia had developed into acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is often fatal.

When Mrs Barvels’ husband arrived at the hospital he was told his wife of eight months had been placed in an induced coma, that she was intubated and that she was dying.

‘On Christmas Eve they told Scott that they had done everything they could for me, that I was dying and that the last resort was going to one of the best hospitals in the country, New York Presbyterian, as an ECMO candidate,’ Mrs Barvels said.

‘They called the hospital and decided I was a good candidate and they transferred me 45 minutes away for the surgery.

‘ECMO is mainly used on children and is not popular for adults but if it wasn’t for this I would have died.’

Mrs Barvels described ECMO as being like a ‘dialysis for the lungs.’

The ECMO machines are not common place in hospitals around the world as they are expensive and require specialists to be able to operate them.

At this stage, Mrs Barvels’ unborn son was doing okay, but doctors weren’t sure what the effect of her heavy medication use would have on him long term. 

‘They had discovered by this stage that the root of the pneumonia was swine flu. I wasn’t healing so doctors decided to deliver Scotty via c-section at 28 weeks, on January 13th, after trying to keep him in as long as possible,’ Mrs Barvels said.

‘My body was fighting for him, not for me.’

‘My husband got the call and was told Scotty might not be responsive and braced him to expect the worst… but he came out screaming which was a great sign.’

Although Scotty was very premature he was doing remarkably well and Mrs Barvels started to heal.

Despite his new wife and his newborn son possibly dying, Mr Barvels, a firefighter, stayed ‘calm’ and kept a journal for Mrs Barvels so she knew everything she had missed and what was happening.

‘The journal is truly amazing. I had no idea how he thought to keep one but it has really helped me understand what really transpired over the 45 days,’ Mrs Barvels said.

‘I am sure he was absolutely devastated inside. He was moving between my hospital and Scotty’s every day and speaking to both of our doctors, making sure we were okay.’

As Mrs Barvels healed, she was slowly weaned off medication before she woke up on February 5th, 2014.

‘I remember that day in bits and pieces. They asked me whether I knew the day and the time and I knew some time had passed but I thought it was early January, not February,’ Mrs Barvels said.

‘I had no idea I had been transferred and I had all these scars. I couldn’t talk or walk but for some reason I knew the baby was born.’

Mrs Barvels met her son for the first time that day.

‘Everyone was so happy to see us together but it was all so overwhelming. I was so happy to meet him but I was also so scared because I had no strength to hold him,’ she said.