Shayla Renee Hammond

You wanted to know a little more about Shayla. She was born on August 19, 1990 in Brainerd, MN a very beautiful brown eyed baby. At the age of 2 her sister Kelsey Lee was born making her a proud big sister. She was a big helper for about the first year after that her sister became her own little play toy,...if her sister yelled Shayla giggled. over the years thou they became the best of friends. Shayla went from sticking her sisters foot in the toilet just to see if it fit to being Kelsey protector against any thing or any one that came in her way. Shayla was allowed to torment her sister but NO ONE else was not even myself. Shayla loved music any and all music. She was proud to be able to say that she knew all the music from the oldies. of course meaning the 80's. Her favorite saying to me was "mom you are so 80's". Shayla loved the theater, anything that had to do with being on stage that was for her. In 7th grade she started her acting on stage by joining the theater arts club. She was also in it in 8th grade, than in 9th grade she actually got to take the class. which to her was the most exciting thing to happen. Shayla loved people and animals. She took a small animals class in 9th grade and everyday would come home with more exciting news about what she had learned that day about all kinds of different animals. Shayla loved to write poems, she would express her feelings and thought threw them. One of her best friends, Paige and her would sit down and write together. They would write amazing together and separate. Shayla's favorite song was Traveling Solider by The Dixie Chicks....she actually preformed it on stage for one of her tryouts for a play. She knew every word by heart. She was a very beautiful 15 year old girl who touched the hearts of every person she met. On Saturday the 25th she woke up in the middle of the night around 4 am throwing up with a very low grade fever. I gave her some Tylenol and water and and a bucket, she said she felt better and just need to rest. I told her I would take her in the next day if she still wasn't feeling well. she said her ear hurt. Saturday morning around 9 she woke up with blood coming out of her ear. I made her an appointment for 11 and took her in. She was cool to the touch so I didn't think to take her temp but when we got the the clinic it was 104.9. The dr there gave her Tylenol and waited a half hour and took her temp again it was still 104.5 so her gave her 2 advil a half hour later it was still 104.5 so her gave her 2 more Advil and wrote out 2 prescriptions one for the z pack and one for ear drops. he said she had ear infection and strep throat. I asked questions about her eyes and her breathing and the fact that she couldn't walk well. He said that it was because of the fever and the infection not to worry once the fever went down and the meds started to work that she would be fine. when her fever was down to 103.7 he said she could go home and the cool air would do her good. We put her in a wheel chair and he said if her fever gets above 105 to take her to the ER otherwise she should be fine. He is the doctor so I took her home. I got her home and her fever went back to normal but she didn't she got worse. By 6 pm she wasn't not answering simple questions like her name. I took her to the ER and there they did a allot of test and determined she had meningitis. Her white count was over 40,000 for those of you who don't know the normal is between 5 and 7. they admitted her into ice. Sunday morning they said they may have to send her to the children's hospital in MN because her kidneys were not functioning properly. By this time she was already in a coma and being kept alive basically by machines. But there was still hope that she would pull thru and be ok. at 9pm they sent her by ambulance to St.Paul. There they put a shunt in her head to drain fluid and check the icp (inter cranial pressure) the pressure was at 89 % normal is none but safe is around 13%. They got it down to 56% and things were looking good. With more meds and more tubes and more test things weren't looking any better. On Monday her temperature shot up to between 105 and 106. Her blood pressure and icp was the major issue that they were working so hard to stabilize. On Tuesday she ran between 107 and 108 all day and her blood pressure was all over the place. They said the icp was getting to be uncontrollable and that we need to get family in. At 5:42pm February 28th 2006 Shayla crossed over to the other side. She will be loved and miss by us all forever.