In Memory of Jennie Minnihan 1990-2007
September 10th 2008 01:19
Really Long Link - 86k
I was researching for information on migraine,which I do almost daily.I decided I'd look for a video on migraine,so I looked on youtube and found a o "In Memory of Jennie Minihan 1990 -
2007" with the words under the title (Read Description)
I read the story first and then watched the video.I am putting the link here to the video in hopes you will watch it and see this beautiful teen.Migraine is real.What a tragic loss.I am still shaken over this,so I am going to let the story speak for itself.
Jennie Minhan had almost as many interests and hobbies as she had friends. From playing softball to performing in the marching band, to a city girl's fascination with farming, the 17- year-old Brandon Valley Senior touched many people in the community. Val Minihan said, "Full of energy. She loved music, she loved to dance. She loved to work on tractors." But in November 2007, a migraine slowed this active and energetic teen. "She had called her mom from work and wanted her to bring her some Advil... "I have a bad headache" she said. Jennie's parents first thought the headache was triggered by the stresses of schoolwork and preparations for college. But Jennie's condition only worsened. Tim Minihan said, "She was lying on the floor, When I got there, everything she was saying was in kind of a weak-sounding voice." Tim and Val Minihan brought Jennie home and were on the phone seeking advice on how to treat their daughter's flu-like symptoms. "And all of a sudden, her left arm just kind of curled up and she kind of let out a long breath. Seizure. At that point, we were not calling Ask-A-Nurse, we were calling 911." Tests revealed that Jennie had suffered a brain hemorrhage, the same type of condition that had hospitalized Senator Tim Johnson nearly one year earlier. Doctors performed three surgeries to relieve pressure on Jennie's brain. "We kind of just felt she's young, she can bounce back off of this. We had a lot of hope that okay, she is critical but she's a strong kid, she's a trooper, she'll make it through this." Senator Johnson's wife Barb called The Minihans to offer her support. "She was very reassuring, there's a lot of ups and downs, she knows what we're feeling right now and her heart goes out to us." But after twelve days in the hospital, it was clear that Jennie would not get any better. And the Minihans began the painful process of letting go. "To read her poems, sing songs, we had friends and family gathered around her bed, and just doing all those things we need to do to say goodbye." A scan showed that Jennie's brain was no longer receiving any blood flow. She was, in fact, brain dead. "She's not in there any longer, I don't feel her presence in their, her body was there, but the heart wasn't connected up to us like it was before." Jennie had renewed her driver's license just a month earlier. She asked her dad what the "D" meant on the license. Tim Minihan explained how the letter stood for "donor" and how organs and tissues can be a life-saving gift to someone in need of a transplant. "At that point, there was no question she was going to be a donor." The Minihans say Jennie was very well-organized and didn't want anything to go to waste. So, since she was no longer in need of her body, many of her tissues and organs went to others who were in need. Her heart went to a 60-year-old father of six in Iowa. Her right lung went to a 64-year-old Wisconsin woman suffering from emphysema. Her kidney to a 10-year-old girl in Minnesota, whose parents wrote the Minihan's thanking them for Jennie's gift. "It says she has a new life and a new spirit since her transplant and she's returned to school yesterday and we even heard her laugh a real laugh. Thank you, thank you. I hope your daughter's spirit lives on in us forever." In all, some 60 lives were saved through the organs and tissues donated by Jennie. The Minihans had prayed for a miracle during Jennie's stay in the hospital. They say that miracle came in the form of support from the community. The Minihans also find comfort in knowing that sixty families can celebrate the miraculous gift of life offered by the generous spirit of Jennie. "Any parent who loses a child would hope to find meaning in that loss, so this definitely gives extra, bittersweet meaning out of our pain that someone else could avoid that same pain of not losing a child." "It really, really hit me that part of Jennie is out therre walking around, helping someone else to live." According to the organ and tissue donation organization LifeSource, there are nearly 100,000 people in the US waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. That includes 149 South Dakota.
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