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Abilene mother fights for her life and warns others of the effects of vaping

After three years of vaping, one West Texas mother shares her story of the medically-induced coma she was in, that she attributes to vaping.

ABILENE, Texas — Abilene mother, Sherie Canada, found herself in a medically-induced coma for almost a month because of vaping.

She started vaping three years ago. Some of her family knew of her habit, but soon she realized it was getting out of hand.

"When I did vape it was constantly, it was when I was watching TV, when I was driving, it got to the point where I couldn't go anywhere without it,” Canada said.

This summer, when she started to feel sick, Canada thought she had the flu and attempted to brush it off with over-the-counter medicine.

“I decided to go to an emergency clinic, minor clinic, and that's where they diagnosed me with pre-pneumonia, I had some fluid on my lungs by chest X-ray,” Canada said.

She took the prescribed antibiotics which didn’t work, and she went back to the minor emergency clinic before deciding it was time to go to Hendrick Medical Center in Abilene.

Canada’s sats were low, her heart rate was elevated, and her blood work came back positive for blood clots.

For two days, they tried to treat it with steroids, but her sats kept going down. On June 14, Canada was in the intensive care unit.

"Still my stats were going down, I couldn't breathe, I was getting worse. By June 18, four days into being in ICU, June 18 they were talking about intubating me, putting me in a medical-sedated coma,” Canada said.

About a week later, she woke up. Taking it step-by-step, she walked again to regain her strength.

"After I walked that first day, they had woke me up from my coma, they told me how bad that vaping was on my lungs and how much fluid, they relieved four liters of fluid off my lungs,” Canada said.

Her final diagnosis was multifocal pneumonia, severe sepsis, acute respiratory failure with hypoxemia.

During ICU, Canada went down to 77 lbs., and was released July 5 at 84 lbs. Now, she has regained her strength and is back at 106 lbs.

She's sharing her story in hopes to save others.

"That they just really think about it and even their family members, I would never want my family or friends to go through this ever again to have to see me fighting for my life,” Canada said.

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