Will Cook County News

By Claude Martinez & edited by Nuha Abdessalam. Photos by Breanna Swick.

On an early Friday, January morning of this year, Sarah Swick found herself experiencing severe chest pain and was rushed to Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital. The 25-year-old sister, friend, and daughter, originally from Chicago, moved out to the southwest region with family, where she attended Stagg High School and relocated to Oak Forest.

Breanna Swick, elder sister to Sarah and their two other siblings, had previously spent the day at the courthouse to receive a marriage certificate with her now-husband in preparation for their wedding the following weekend. 

“My mom, my younger sister, and I went to the hospital during a snowstorm,” said Breanna, after having received a 6 A.M. phone call on Jan 5 from Kevin, Sarah’s boyfriend, who informed Breanna that Sarah was being rushed into Palos Hospital with unknown chest pain––initially hospital staff believed Sarah was having a panic attack until Sarah began coughing up blood. 

Breanna and her family quickly arrived at Palos Hospital amid a snowstorm, “We went over there and were all in the room trying to figure out what was happening.” Within 30 minutes, the hospital staff realized that this was far more serious than just a panic attack.

Physicians soon discovered that Sarah’s lungs were filling up with blood, which they believed could be compromising her heart. 

Too weak to hold up her own oxygen mask, Breanna clarified that the hospital (Palos) staff began intubating Sarah. Eventually, still unknown to hospital staff of her condition, Sarah then was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Jan 13. 

The new standing physician on Sarah’s case remarked that they had never seen something like this happen before, especially to someone as young as 25. Breanna added, “Once they took her to Northwestern, they (staff) realized it was her mitral valve (which allows blood to flow one-way) in her heart that has deteriorated.” 

As rapid as the circumstances have already been, Sarah was ushered off to the operating room for open-heart surgery just days after being transferred to Northwestern on Jan 16. While moving to the surgery room came complications; the hospital’s ECMO machine (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) somehow was yanked or pulled out of Sarah’s artery. Providing surgical doctors with only “two minutes” to perform life-saving surgery, Breanna said, “She went for 7 minutes without oxygen to her brain; during the surgery, the ECMO machine tubing was placed directly into her heart!” After a taxing 9 hours in surgery, doctors informed family members that Sarah’s heart surgery needed to be postponed to rectify her bleeding artery. The staff then spent an additional five hours repairing her artery, but eventually, the vascular team completely repaired the shredded artery. 

Two days later, on Jan 18, NW hospital doctors performed open-heart surgery, replacing Sarah’s mitral valve after another brutal eight hours. Ultimately, Sarah’s chest was left open for two days, ensuring no infections were present and then closing her chest.

Before Sarah’s severe open-heart circumstances, she was a recipient of NUCALA shots to help prevent autoimmune infections from occurring regarding her asthma for EGPA. 

“Eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) is a rare form of vasculitis, meaning it causes inflammation in small and medium-sized blood vessels, which can result in damage to organs throughout the body,” as written by the American Lung Association.

Her insurance company denied Sarah NUCALA shots because they no longer covered those injections under her insurance. Breanna said, “They decided they didn’t want to cover it anymore, so she stopped it,” adding that those shots cost $5,000. “Now she needs three shots a month, for life, to keep her autoimmune at bay,” Breanna added, “Doctors have said if she would have never stopped taking those shots… it would have never caused her heart to have issues.”

Sarah was scheduled for two more surgeries, a plastic surgery repair for her thigh which the ECMO machine was ripped out, and a vocal cord surgery, in hopes of transitioning into an ideally steady recovery. 

Set to be released from rehab the following day on March 19, Sarah experienced a stroke the next morning at 5 A.M. and was immediately sent back to Northwestern’s ICU to remove the clot in her head, resulting in part of her skull being removed. While recovering, Sarah could not move the left side of her face and only had motor control of 50% of her body’s left side. 

After being admitted to the hospital for the first time earlier this year in Jan., Sarah developed a fungal infection called Candida. The doctors believed she was fully cleared of infection, but unfortunately, the infection (Candida) hid itself. This infection tends to attach itself to foreign objects; the Candida reached Sarah’s new mitral valve, indicating she would then have to have another open heart surgery scheduled for this upcoming April 15. An additional four or further surgeries are expected for Sarah, with a four to six-month hospital stay for/in recovery. 

Due to her hair being shaved for surgery, family members and Sarah’s friends sent wigs to uplift her during this trying time. Sarah is the middle child of four: Breanna, the eldest; Madison, her younger sister; and Jacob, her youngest brother. “I kind of laugh because Sarah was always meant to be the older sister because she is very fierce, vocal, stubborn, and doesn’t put up with any crap from anyone,” said Breanna. Growing up very close-knit, the three sisters often referred to themselves as the “Powerpuff Girls,” Breanna said. “We did Girl Scouts when we were younger, and the trip at the end was always Key Lime Cove; it was all about spending time with your family and friends, selling all of our cookies, and Six Flags was right there too.” 

To follow along, show support, and read updates on Sarah Swick, please visit ‘Get Sarah back to good health!’ on GoFundMe here.

“We grew up very poor, living with what we had and working with it. It was good, and it was okay.” Breanna added, “We’ve done without electricity, without water, and without cell phones–– It’s tough for our family to be vulnerable and financially asking for help; that’s why I started the GoFundMe.” 

Within 24 hours of the GoFundMe being up, Sarah saw so many people sharing her story and reading all the kind words. Breanna added, “Sarah told my mom that she never thought as many people cared about her as they do.” Breanna said, “Every single day, she reads all of the messages; that’s all I ask everyone to do is send her as many good things as they can for her to read.”