Cory Wharton and Taylor Selfridge are sharing some updates about their youngest daughter Maya’s health, just days after the three-year-old returned home to California following an 18-day hospital stay in Fort Worth, Texas.
As The Ashley told you last week, Maya’s mom, Taylor Selfridge, resurfaced on social media after weeks of silence to reveal that Maya had been in the hospital for 16 days, which Taylor said was “the longest stay/most stressful one we’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot.”
Taylor stated at the time that she wasn’t ready to go into details about what caused Maya’s health crisis, but on Monday, Taylor broke things down in a series of Snapchat posts. Cory also posted to his Instagram account on Monday about the experience.
As Teen Mom fans know, Maya was born with a rare form of heart disease called tricuspid atresia and has already undergone several heart surgeries in her lifetime, with the most recent being an open-heart surgery called the Fontan procedure back in October. Maya was hospitalized for 13 days for that procedure.
On Monday, Cory– who also shares daughter Mila with Taylor, as well as daughter Ryder with Cheyenne Floyd– took to social media to give fans his own update on Maya’s health. Cory confirmed that he had been in Thailand competing on The Challenge when he was notified of Maya’s emergency.
“My worst nightmare became a reality… Being halfway across the globe and getting a phone call saying your daughter is getting Air Vac 🚁 to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, is any parent’s worst nightmare,” Cory wrote. “Watching my daughter fight through this has been the hardest thing I’ve ever faced. These days tested everything in me. Fear, pain, uncertainty… all of it. But through it all, Maya never stopped being strong. She reminded me what courage really looks like.
“I’ll carry this forever,” he continued. “I’ve never been more proud to be her dad.”
“For Maya, this isn’t her first time in the hospital,” he wrote. “She’s already faced two open-heart surgeries, and now we’re here again–this time fighting for two of her most vital organs, her lungs and her heart … .”
The ‘Teen Mom’ dad also took an opportunity to thank the nurses and doctors at Cook Children’s Medical Center, as well as Maya’s mom, Taylor, for handling the situation alone until he could get back to the United States, writing, “I give [Taylor] all the credit in the world.”
Taylor had recently confirmed in a social media video that she was in Texas, stating that the entire situation “was literally, like, a nightmare, number one. It was just so much, so much happened, I can’t even explain it.”
On Sunday, Taylor went on to share more details to Instagram about Maya’s recent health scare, explaining that they initially believed that Maya had a stomach bug, however, it “turned into something so much bigger.”
On Monday, Taylor told the entire story on Snapchat. (The Ashley’s going to try to summarize it, as Taylor’s explanation was very long.)
“I wanted to talk about what happened to Maya,” she began.
Taylor explained that Maya and Mila were in Texas with her parents while Taylor had gone on a girls’ trip to Nashville. As Taylor was flying back from her trip, her mother told her that Maya seemed to be “sick to her stomach.” When Taylor arrived at her parents’ home and spent time with Maya, she decided she wanted to take her to the hospital, as Taylor thought Maya was coughing up the pulled pork she had for dinner.
Taylor said that when they were at the hospital, Maya’s oxygen level was lower than her usual level.
“I wasn’t super-concerned. But then they were like, ‘We want to keep you guys overnight’ because we were there for, like, hours,” she said, adding that the doctors said Maya was showing signs of pulmonary hypertension and was put on high-flow oxygen (despite it being extremely hard on someone who has had the procedures that Maya has had).
Later, Taylor stated that Maya “turned completely green, blue, purple, and she [falls] back. She completely coded.”
“I thought she was dying; my mom thought she was dying and my mom’s seen some things,” Taylor said, adding that her mom (who is a respiratory therapist) began using artificial resuscitation on Maya because she was in respiratory distress. Taylor said she was screaming at everyone, believing that the staff gave Maya too much oxygen.
“Why did [she] come in with a stomach bug and now [she] has a breathing problem?” Taylor said. “I was livid. I literally let everybody have it in the room.”
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Maya needed to be intubated (i.e. have a tube placed through her mouth or nose to help her breathe).
“It went literally [from] zero to 100— so fast,” Taylor said, adding that the hospital needed to Life Flight Maya to a bigger hospital that could handle her situation properly. They decided to send Maya to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth.
“I had already called Cory and I was like, ‘You need to get on the first flight out. You need to get back here and get to Texas immediately. You need to come,'” she said. “He’s halfway across the world.”
Maya continued to deteriorate, with her left lung eventually collapsing completely.
“They intubated her, gave her a central line and then me and Maya get on this Life Flight— only I can go. I just had my purse and her,” she said, adding that it took Cory at least two days to get to Texas from Thailand.
After it was deemed that Maya did not have a virus, Taylor said everyone was stumped as to why Maya’s health had plummeted so quickly.
“They suggest at some point… doing a bronc,” she said. (A “bronc”— or bronchoscopy— is a procedure that lets the doctors “look inside the airways and lungs with a bronchoscope. A bronchoscope is a thin tube with a light and camera on it,” according to Cleveland Clinic.)
Taylor said that when the procedure was done, all of the medical professionals present had a “worried look on their face.” The doctor explained that what Maya had been coughing up wasn’t pulled pork.
“They pulled out this thing that was in her lungs…it was gnarly, they pulled out this thing that was shaped like a tree. It was crazy…. They were like, ‘We’ve got to figure this out. Why is she forming these things?'”
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Maya was able to be removed from the vent for a bit but was eventually reintubated.
“She was on the vent for a total of nine days. It was over a week, longest we’ve ever seen her on a ventilator. It was horrible,” Taylor said.
Taylor said that by that time, her parents, as well as Cory’s mother had flown out, and the doctors reported that Maya’s heart was actually doing OK but that they still didn’t know what was going on.
After more procedures, Maya’s lungs started to clear up but it was still inconclusive as to what was in Maya’s lung. (It was not pulled pork or a foreign object, and Taylor said they still don’t know what it was.)
Maya had been on so much medication that she was going through withdrawals.
“She just could not stop shaking, sweating, pupils were so big. It was so sad. … she had delirium…. they had her on all these other meds to try to get her not to withdrawal. She was not herself. She would just stare off at the wall, no emotion really… We were pretty worried about that but we thought it was just the drugs she was on.”
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At that point, Taylor said that doctors became concerned that Maya had suffered a stroke.
“I immediately am a freaking mess,” she said, adding that Maya couldn’t stand up and hadn’t used her muscles for a long time.
“I was very concerned. She’s not talking, not walking, not smiling. I was like, ‘Where is my baby? Am I going to see her normal self?'” she said.
Taylor said that, after Maya was taken off the drugs, she went back to her normal self, but the doctors still have no idea what caused the things to grow in Maya’s lungs and her health to deteriorate so quickly.
“She’s OK, she’s stable but we’re waiting for the next show to drop…why did this happen, so that’s kind of where we’re at and it’s scary,” Taylor said. “…That’s kind of where we are at now. We are in the phase of watch her like a f**king hawk and hope for the best.”
Taylor mentioned that plastic bronchitis– which is likely what caused Maya’s issues– can occur in people who have the Fontan surgery that Maya had.
Taylor said that she’s struggling herself right now after having been in “fight or flight” for so long.
“I’m not OK. I’m not in a good headspace,” she said. “…I’m very grateful that my baby is home and that she is alive because there were points in time where I thought she wasn’t going to be. But I’m not doing good. I will eventually but right now I need to get back to myself a little bit. Because I feel like a piece of me died or something.”
RELATED STORY: ‘Teen Mom’ Star Taylor Selfridge Breaks Silence on Daughter Maya’s Health After Vanishing from Social Media: “16 Days in the Hospital”
(Photos: Instagram)
8 Responses
That all sounds terrifying. I’m so glad that poor baby pulled through, I can’t imagine having gone through so much at that young age.
Side note: Corey has two children with severe medical issues. It’s past time to give up galavanting around the world for The Challenge and just get a real job close to home so it’s not a two day flight when (God forbid) something like this happens.
I’m very fortunate my kids are healthy.. it’s not fair that some little kids have to go through this. Makes me feel guilty. I don’t really understand why God lets bad things happen to small kids.
This sounds like plastic bronchitis and the tree things were probably bronchial casts.
Corey needs to stay closer to home, for a while at leas., I’m so glad that Maya is ok, that was so scary and sad to even read.
Man I got choked up reading that. How awful. It’s so horrible that they can’t just relax now because why it happened is still unknown and possibly happen again.
That sweet little girl has been through far too much. She is absolutely adorable and her smile lights up any picture she is in. I know they had to have been terrified. I can’t even imagine one of my kids being life flighted and on life support. And still having no clear answer as to why it happened to begin with. My mother had delirium and it was terrifying for her. Sending healing energy to Maya💕
I’m sorry your mom went through that. I hope she is okay now.
Plastic bronchitis its linked to her recent fontan surgery