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A Fungus Is Eating Teen's Organs, Father Says

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN

sackerman@tampatrib.com

Published: February 5, 2009

TAMPA - Carli Slack checked in to St. Joseph's Children's Hospital on July 19 and, except for a brief visit home at Thanksgiving, has been there ever since.

Doctors diagnosed her with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a highly curable children's disease. They quickly sent the cancer into remission, but Carli isn't getting better.

The 17-year-old Plant High School junior contracted a fungus that is eating away at her organs, says her father, Kevin Slack. Physicians have told him at least five times that she won't survive, he said.

Last spring, three children battling the same cancer in the same unit died after developing infections from aspergillus, a mold, according to a lawsuit filed by their families Tuesday. The lawsuit blames St. Joseph's for not protecting patients from the mold during an expansion project.

"You have to question it," Kevin Slack said Wednesday. "Boy, there are a whole lot of coincidences."

Slack, a social worker and youth minister, said he should have been told about the incidents. "I've got to wonder why they didn't," he said.

Doctors discovered Carli's infection in the fall after she began having abdominal problems, including internal bleeding. Her parents were told Oct. 15 to prepare for the worst.

Carli was removed from the ventilator that was breathing for her and, remarkably, began breathing on her own.
Slack said doctors don't know how to control the fungus, which has not been publically identified by hospital officials.

His daughter spends nearly two hours a day, five days a week in a hyperbaric chamber to help slow the infection while her family - dad, mom, two sisters and a brother - kept a vigil at her bedside and online. Viewers nationwide follow Carli's plight at www.carlislack.page.tl/.
Slack said his daughter struggles with depression. Her older sister, Cassandra, a Plant High senior, learned this week that she was accepted to North Carolina State University. Carli started crying.

"She doesn't think she's going to get to go to college," her father said.

It breaks his heart.

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144.

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