| Music pushes critically ill teen to recovery |
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By: By MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer – May 4, 2008
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TMP Photo by Kelly Hite. Justine Cantrell receives a speech evaluation at Special Kids.
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A normal headache threatened 14-year-old Justine Cantrell’s life, but music brought her back.
Wednesday, March 12 started out as a normal day as Justine went about her normal morning routine, picking out clothes and cleaning up for school at Central Middle.
“She complained of a headache and I told her it was picture day and she had to go to school,” her brother Clint recalled.
A little later she told Clint her head still hurt and he gave her some painkillers.
But the medicine didn’t make the headache go away.
Then Clint found her unconscious on the floor.
He scooped her up that Wednesday morning and rushed her to Middle Tennessee Medical Clinic. Within 15 minutes of being at the Emergency Room, Justine was on Life Flight to Vanderbilt’s Children’s Hospital.
Then Clint and Rayna learned Justine had an arterio-venous malformation (AVM), and it had burst. Blood had pooled in her brain and caused unknown damage, meaning she needed immediate surgery.
“When the surgery was finished, the surgeon painted a bleak picture,” Clint said. “He said she may never wake up again.”
When Clint and Rayna saw Justine for the first time after the surgery, she looked like she may never wake up.
“Her head was shaved. She was unconscious. There were IVs everywhere. It was very traumatic,” Clint said. And she was on a respirator that breathed for her.
“I went there on the night it happened. The doctor told me the first 48 hours are the most important,” Central Middle School Band teacher Scott Kinney said. After a traumatic brain injury, rehabilitation and stimulation usually starts within 24 to 48 hours for best results.
Even though Justine was still unconscious, Kinney and his sax-playing friend Dennis Taylor visited her and began playing.
“I got in her face and pretended like I was in class,” Kinney said. He yelled like he does to get his students ready to start practice.
Then Taylor played a scale routine to warm up. And Justine stirred. Her breathing rate doubled from six breaths a minute to 12.
Taylor played some jazz and blues tunes. And Justine began breathing on her own.
“When we were done they took her off the respirator and she woke up that afternoon,” Kinney said.
Kinney returned the next day with Dana Robbins, another sax player. As Robbins played, Justine held on to the horn to feel the vibrations of the music.
Kinney went back with more music. Students from Central visited to play. And with each visit Justine got better.
“I was just thinking stimulation …” Kinney said. “I hoped it would and prayed it would (help), but I has no idea it would be so profound.”
“We feel like he’s the reason she was (taken) off the respirator,” Rayna said.
AVMs are congenital malformations of blood vessels. Often thought of as short circuits, AVMs are found where capillaries are absent.
Many people with AVMs have no idea. Typically they are found by accident when a patient needs a brain scan for some other reason or they rupture.
Justine’s AVM ruptured that morning causing her headache and collapse. At Vanderbilt a neurosurgeon performed an emergency embolization, or plugging of the ruptured vessels.
To perform the surgery, part of Justine’s skull was removed to relieve pressure on the brain. When the AVM ruptured, it caused more than a cup of blood to pool on the left side of her brain causing stroke-like symptoms.
Justine was only 7 years old when her father died in 2001 and she was 10 when her mother died. Orphaned, she was left her in the care of her older brother Clint and his wife Rayna.
“She’s our oldest child. I don’t look at her as a sister-in-law,” Rayna said, adding there’s a 21-year difference between Justine and Clint.
Clint said when their mother died, he took his sister in even though he and Rayna have two kids of their own, Savannah, 5, and Jackson, 7.
“It’s not responsibility as much as what we had to do,” Clint said. “She had a lot of emotional trauma in her life and I wanted to give her a stable environment.”
And he did. Justine had risen to the top of her class at Central Middle School and played “a central part in the Central Band” as a saxophone player, Kinney said.
“She’s brilliant,” Clint said, adding his sister was an avid reader. “She’s always been a kid who seemed to be beyond her years.”
To bring her back, the doctor encouraged as much stimulation as possible as soon as possible. This suggestion inspired Kinney to visit with a fellow saxophone player the following morning.
And within the first week after the AVM ruptured, Justine could play parts of songs on her saxophone, even though she couldn’t speak or read a written word.
Although she’s improving each day, Justine still isn’t out of the woods yet. After weeks of therapy at Vanderbilt and The Children’s Healthcare Center of Atlanta, she is still having trouble speaking and she can’t even remember her ABC’s or count to 20.
“She was a ravenous reader. Now she can’t read at all but, because music is a different part of the brain, she can read music,” Rayna said.
Clint said Justine has short-term memory, speaking and reading problems, but he’s hoping for a full recovery.
“She’s scrappy,” Rayna said. “But she’s having to relearn from the beginning.”
To relearn everything Justine has enrolled at Special Kids, Inc., a local nonprofit that provides therapy services for children with developmental and medical needs.
She’ll get physical, occupational and speech therapy there. Because she can’t return to school, she’ll have teacher come to her home.
“They’re going to have to start from scratch. It’s all in there, but she can’t get it out,” Rayna said.
To help Justine on the long road to recovery, Kinney has organized two benefit shows and he dedicated Central’s Jazz Band’s performance at JazzFest to Justine.
Central Middle School Band concert and silent auction will benefit Justine. The concert will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 6 in the CMS auditorium.
Kinney has also organized a benefit concert for Sunday, May 18 at Maple Street Grill. Jazz band Skyline Drive headlines the show, but other types of music will also be featured. Food and drink will be provided by the Maple Street Grill.
Michelle Willard can be contacted at 869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com. |
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