$34K Raised To Get Montco Native Home From Ohio After Life-Threatening Injury, Illness

LANSDALE, PA — A Lansdale couple has been by the side of their daughter for four months, as she battles complications from a head injury that nearly claimed her life three times.

Fran and Mary Alice Cannon are now looking forward to 38-year-old Mary Catherine's release from St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown. Ohio. Several of their friends are raising money on GoFundMe to fly her home to the Philadelphia area in October, so she can recover near family and friends.

On May 22, Mary Catherine had just finished walking her dogs at her home in eastern Ohio when one of them yanked at the leash and she fell, smacking her head on the driveway.

She had a headache that night, and the next day asked her father Fran to send her some food because she "didn't feel right." Eventually, Mary Catherine called her neighbor, who found her "sitting on the floor, completely jaundiced," her dad said.

The neighbor took her to the hospital, where doctors said a brain bleed started affecting her kidneys and liver.

On the 24th, a doctor called and told Fran and Mary Alice that they should come to the hospital. They drove the 350 miles from Lansdale to Youngstown, where their oldest daughter was in the ICU "with no less than 18 different drips going into her," Fran said.

"She's on a ventilator, she's on a feeding tube," he said. "It was very frightening to see, very upsetting as a dad. All of this had happened so fast."

The brain bleed was only the start of the complications. Mary Catherine contracted a bacterial lung injury that doctors told the Cannons was incredibly rare — there wasn't a drug available for it at the Cleveland Clinic, 75 miles away.

Doctors said Mary Catherine had "a one percent chance of leaving" the hospital, Fran said. Thankfully, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland were able to supply drugs to help beat the infection. The drugs were expensive and had some side effects, Fran said, but doctors were set on beating the infection.

"They were determined to bang it out of her," he said. "If not, we were going to lose her."

Mary Catherine kicked that illness, but then had a liver complication three weeks later that almost killed her, Fran said. Doctors got that under control and told Fran he could go home to Pennsylvania. But as he was halfway through the drive, they called him again — Mary Catherine was having a heart attack. He turned around, and headed the three hours back to Ohio.

She survived that heart attack and her health has been improving since, Fran said.

"So, we lost her three times and we got her back," he said.

Mary Catherine has made a remarkable recovery, Fran said, and has been off the ventilator for 10 days. But, she still has a lot more recovering to do.

Next week, Fran hopes, her feeding tube and trachea tube will come out. She and her mother are scheduled to fly back to the Philadelphia area on October 3, where she will need additional care while she recovers.

Mary Catherine went to Christopher Dock High School in Kulpsville and graduated from the University of Connecticut. She was a successful marathon runner and had competed in hundreds of races worldwide before she broke some bones in her hip, Fran said. She hit the pavement in London, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo as well as across the U.S. in Boston, Chicago, and New York City.

Mary Catherine lived in Alabama for some time to work with her coach and train, Fran said, but she moved to Ohio recently after meeting her current boyfriend at the Boston Marathon.

Fran and Mary Alice have been staying at Mary Catherine's house with the dogs when they are not at the hospital.

Two of Fran's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity brothers from Gettysburg College encouraged him to set up the GoFundMe, a step that Fran said was difficult for him.

“I’ve learned to be humble and accept the help," he said.

As of Friday morning, people had donated almost $34,000 to the Cannons' $40,000 goal on GoFundMe. That money will pay for air transport from Ohio back to the Philadelphia area. The funds also cover special ambulances to transport her and her mother to and from the airports.

The GoFundMe notes that most of the expenses for Mary Catherine are covered by insurance, but the cross-state hospital relocation " will not be covered due to the insurance company's classification of the expense as being 'discretionary.'"

Any funds raised over $40,000 will "directly cover other future medical expenses related to Mary Catherine’s ongoing recovery."

The Cannons are also expecting their second grandchild; their other daughter Elizabeth lives in Glenside and is due in mid-October. Fran said he hopes the baby holds off until he, Mary Alice, and Mary Catherine are back home.