MEGAN GRAY
Connor Phifer
It was another routine day for 19 year old Connor Phifer. Get up, got owork, hang out with friends and family and then go to bed. The only thing different about phifers day was a consistent migrane. Less than 24 hours later, his mother, Lori Acres, receives a call...
“His father gives me a call and says ‘Connor is being flown from Andalusia to UAB on a medical flight, they don't know if he is going to make it’.”
Phifer became unconscious while driving a work truck. Once at the hospital, doctors put him in an induced coma. It took his mom several days to get to Birmingham from her California home...
“I was landing here in Alabama, and they said that Connor was just now starting to wake up ”
He was returning to his normal self, being able to talk and eat. Once tests were ran, it was clear something wasnt right. His health was declining, and no one could figure out why. It was almost two months later until he was diagnosed and the results were devastating, connor had Aspergillus Encephalitis; which is a fungal infection of the brain, and in young phifer, like many others, this disease has impacted his ability to perform normal daily functions…
“And we discovered the worst news possible that it was Aspergillus with Encephalitis which I told you before, the swelling of the brain, and its very deep in his brain, which is in the basil ganglia, which I talked a little bit about before, which wraps around the base of the brain, where the brain stem is. It controls your body temperature, walking, talking eating, so Connor was not able to walk, talk, eat, control his bowels, nothing”
the survival rate is as low as 1 percent of the cases diagnosed, and the fact that connor has made it this far and is starting to be able to use his left hand to hold things and feed him self now is a major improvement…
“The odds were 99 percent mortality, and one percent survival rate, and he’s got a testimony, i know he does and i know that why ever this happened to Connor we will never know what actually caused it and we will never know why... ”
In such a difficult time, their family has turned to each other for support, as they need it now more than ever…
Connors grandmother, Sharon Klug, has seen the overwhelming support….
“I mean her friends have been awesome, just awesome, it makes you feel good about people, and that people do care and it makes your heart fell real good”
Phifers is one of the success stories from this disease, the medical treatment and supply cost is starting to add up. Acres has set up a fundraiser to aid in the medical bills.
“What we did was started a fundraiser, through giveforward.com and what it is for is Connors medical expenses that aren’t covered, uh wheelchairs, diapers, feeding tube supplies, you name it, there is a lot of stuff that will not be covered one day”
But with each day is an opportunity for improvement…
“Everytime we go, we see a little bity improvement, and I’ll take those little bity improvements, before he had no expression on his face for quite a while, and now, maybe within the last month, we can actually see kind of a smile and thats brought alot of joy to us…”
Connors family may be going through difficult time, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Within the next month, PHIFER and his mother will be traveling back to california where she is living with her husband, John, and is going to become his primary caretaker…
For the University of Alabama, I'm Megan Gray, reporting...