A woman was left paralysed after a routine appointment she nearly cancelled with her chiropractor.
Caitlin Jensen, 28, was having a neck adjustment when she had a tragic reaction which cut off the blood supply to her brain.
The recent university graduate had read her mum's last text at 9am that morning and was struck by a stroke 21 minutes later.
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Mum Darlene Jensen, 49, said she has been unable to walk, talk, eat or even breathe properly on her own ever since.
"I just thought she’s probably got vertigo or something,” Ms Jensen told The Independent.
"It just never occurred to me that it was a serious issue so I just said, 'you know I’m gonna run up and check on her. I’ll be back in a little bit'."
Caitlin's neck adjustment resulted in vertebral artery dissection which caused the stroke and sent her into rapid decline.
Ms Jensen left her job managing the front office at a transmission shop in Savannah, Georgia, and rushed to her daughter.
But when she arrived at the chiropractor's, she was shocked to discover the severity of the situation and her daughter already in an ambulance.
The mum didn't realise her usually healthy daughter was having a stroke when she was her speech had been affected with sweats, nausea and vomiting.
Caitlin was then put on a ventilator and has since been moved to the acquired brain injury unit at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, USA, where Ms Jensen is sleeping by her side.
The young grad had just finished her biology degree and was applying for a job researching microplastics in wastewater and the environment.
Her studies led her to seek a chiropractor to help her loosen up after studying at her desk every day and clenching her jaw.
She had a few visits before the fateful appointment which was scheduled by the office after a previous adjustment.
Ms Jensen recalled her daughter saying she didn't think she needed to go but that she told her to keep it and not cancel at the last minute.
Within the hour, Caitlin was in hospital and was then moved to Shepherd two months later where she is making some progress and came off the ventilator.
Ms Jensen is currently working through the alphabet with her daughter whose cognitive abilities appear to have been spared.
The mum told how the pair spell everything out with her daughter signalling when she has got to the right letter.
Caitlin can also mouth things, nod and give the thumbs. up helping with communication and gets lots of joy from her support dogs.
She has recently been very emotional and upset now that her harsh reality is hitting her, according to her mum.
A GoFundMe has raised almost $100,000 of a $250,000 goal to help towards mounting medical bills.
Messages of support have poured in for the family and Caitlin's fight to return to her former self.
The family are working with her to build her muscles associated with swallowing to protect her own airway, diaphragm, sneezing, coughing and other functions that will help her to breathe independently.
While she has been removed from the ventilator, she is still breathing through a trach.
Her mum is sleeping on a pull out bed in Caitlin's room and said she cannot leave her because she has lots of secretions.
Caitlin could choke on her own saliva because her muscles remain weakened.
She recalled several "code blue" scary moments where Caitlin's condition worsened and wants to warn others of what could happen from having neck adjustments.
"I had never heard of anything like this happening, I didn’t know it could happen so it just wasn’t on my radar," she added.
The mum is now raising awareness of the associated risks of chiropractor neck adjustments, claiming that "chiropractors should not do them at all."
She said she has been contacted by several people who have also been affected by the treatment including a person who is now a quadriplegic.
While some chiropractors argue that dissection itself can be the cause of the pain that brings patients to seek their services – claiming their own adjustments had helped a larger problem in many cases.
Ms Jensen is looking forward to spending every possible moment with her daughter and said her spirit has not faltered, but remains strong and determined.
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