Published: May 22, 2006 11:17 pm         

OBA’s Potts recovers from life-threatening infection

Lori and Jayson Potts weren’t as anxious as most parents when their son, Jerod, started to drive.

Seeing their son behind the wheel of the family automobile wasn’t as frightening as seeing him in a medically induced coma from a multi-resistant staphylococcus aureus infection at Tulsa’s St. Francis Hospital two months earlier.

“If God was going to bring him through all that, he can drive without any problems,” said Lori Potts.

Doctors at the Tulsa facility told the Potts if they had reached the hospital as few as 30 minutes later, their son would have been dead.

Jerod bruised his hip in a pickup basketball game at Oklahoma Bible Academy a week before Thanksgiving.

It hurt enough the next day for him to miss practice. By Sunday, he couldn’t walk. His father, thinking it was a groin injury, took him to Integris Bass Baptist Health Center.

Three days later, he was diagnosed with MRSA and rushed to St. Francis after he had lost 15 pounds.

“After looking at his charts, they said this boy is dying,” said Jayson Potts. “He gave us five minutes with him to say goodbye.”

He was put in a coma because he was too weak to withstand treatment. The family was told on Thanksgiving there wasn’t much hope. The infection had spread all over his body. He had gone into toxic shock, “which usually kills people,” Jayson Potts said.

Fortunately, the infection hadn’t spread to his brain, and treatment started soon enough to prevent it from affecting his heart.

“It looked like he had zits from his head to his toes,” Jayson Potts said.

At 3 a.m. the night Jerod was brought to Tulsa, Wade Burleson, the Potts’ pastor at Emmanuel Baptist, met with the family, having received the message after attending a Hornets’ game in Oklahoma City.

“To see how he was on that Thanksgiving Day when he rallied from certain death to where he is today, is an absolute miracle,” Burleson said.

Friends in Enid and Tulsa, where the family lived until two years ago, started a prayer chain. Robin Roberts, Andrew Heath and Burleson updated friends in Enid.

Family friends helped with the couple’s other two children — Cale, 13, and Makayla, 8. Lori stayed with her parents in Tulsa for three months while Jerod recovered. He started to get better in six days but was in the coma for almost a month.

When he awoke, he didn’t remember much.

“Whenever they told me everything that happened, it was pretty shocking,” Jerod Potts said.

Potts was released before Christmas, but just for a day.

One of his lungs collapsed, and he had to fight blood clots. He was fitted with a chest tube to drain the liquid.

He needed two lung surgeries, including one to remove part of a lung. He also needed hip surgery.

“They couldn’t get it (infection) to drain so they had to scrape it all or he would have gotten this again,” Lori Potts said.

Jerod required shots twice daily until May 12. His parents estimated he had more than 200 shots of Lovenox as part of his treatment.

He went back to school at the end of January but had to take antibiotics through a PICC line, which was wrapped heavily to avoid being jarred by accidental contact.

Jerod’s legs, Lori said, felt like pin cushions. There were a lot of bruises.

Jerod was in six different rooms in the ICU before leaving the unit for his own room. When he first came out of the coma, his memory was clouded by a medicine (Versed) he was taking.

“It’s probably better that I don’t remember any of it,” he said.

“From the time he was in the emergency room, he was never negative,” Jayson Potts said. “He never said, ‘Why me?’ I was pretty amazed how strong he was through that.”

Lori Potts said faith helped the family through the crisis.

“He (God) gave me a sense of peace that everything was going to be OK,” she said. “Even if he went home to Christ, we would have been blessed to have him as long as we did.”

Another athlete treated for MRSA at another Tulsa hospital died around Christmas.

Potts plans to play basketball and soccer again. He shoots hoops with his father at home. He doesn’t think he’ll play this summer but plans to be back with the Trojans for the 2006-07 season.

“I’ll probably be a little hesitant at first,” Jerod Potts said, “but the doctors said I have a better chance of being struck by lightning twice than I do of getting this again.”

He saw a few OBA games after coming home, but wasn’t able to go to the state tournament because he still was on the blood thinners. Jerod said he still tires easily and has soreness in his hips.

Potts weighed as little as 98 pounds at one time. He’s making up for it now.

“He eats all the time now,” said his father.

The ordeal brought the family closer together. Jerod still does stuff with his buddies but spends more time with the family, who are planning a California vacation.

“I think when he hits the court, it will hit him all he’s overcome,” said Jayson Potts.

The Potts said they always will appreciate the compassion the community showed them.