Junior Megan Harris returned from a summer mission trip to Thailand with her health in critical condition due to two strands of E. coli she contracted while traveling.
\nAfter staying in the hospital for five days with kidney failure, drastic dehydration and vomiting, Megan made a full recovery.<\/p>\n
Megan said she felt ill during her last week in Thailand and assumed it was a minor sickness.
\n\u201cI started not feeling well, and I thought it was just car sickness because we were on what was supposed to be an eight-hour drive and turned out to be a 14-hour drive,\u201d Megan said. \u201cI started not feeling well then, but the next day I still wasn\u2019t feeling well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan said she stayed in bed for the rest of the week at the Bible school where the mission team was stationed in Bangkok.<\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s last day in Thailand, she was taken to a hospital and told she just had a \u201ctraveler\u2019s bug.\u201d Megan said that the hospital did not run any blood work. The following day, she flew back to the United States. Due to weakness, she had to use a wheelchair to make it through the several different airports to get home. She continued on to her final destination in Houston where her family waited for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe tried so hard to look so happy to see her family, but she just didn\u2019t look right,\u201d Megan\u2019s mother Michele Harris said. \u201cHer eyes, to me, were sunken in. She was a little gray and you could just tell she wasn\u2019t feeling well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan\u2019s family rushed her to the emergency room. After testing it was discovered she had extremely low blood pressure and severe dehydration. The doctors took blood, ran more tests and told Megan she was in kidney failure, without fully knowing what was wrong with her. She said, at one point, her kidneys were functioning at 5%.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the I.C.U. doctor, we had nephrologist, the kidney doctors, we had the blood doctors,\u201d Michele said. \u201cWe had infectious disease doctors trying to figure out what was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan\u2019s dad, Adrian Harris, called their church and had everyone stop what they were doing, pray and spread the word that Megan was in critical condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 70 churches across the U.S. had been praying, and that\u2019s not including the people back in Thailand,\u201d Megan said.<\/p>\n
The doctors discovered Megan had two strands of E. coli, but she started improving hours after diagnosis.
\n\u201cIn that five-hour window is when her numbers started getting better,\u201d Michele said. \u201cThat was a miracle in itself.\u201d Megan\u2019s peers were shocked at her composure throughout this journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cMegan definitely did not complain about it,\u201d Global Outreach group leader Erastos Evdoxiadis said. \u201cHer composure was very good. She wasn\u2019t complaining, she wasn\u2019t whining.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan\u2019s mom said she was encouraged by her daughter\u2019s strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was laying in the bed, and they were doing all this stuff to her,\u201d Michele said. \u201cI was crying. Her sisters were crying. Her dad was crying. She looked at me, and she made eye contact with me, and she said, \u2018Mommy, it\u2019s going to be okay. I\u2019m going to be fine.\u2019 And that was her attitude the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris was discharged from the hospital on the morning of Aug. 7 and attended band camp the following weekend at Harding. Her quick recovery was said to be miraculous by her family, friends and doctors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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