In May 2011, Rerecich began showing a variety of symptoms including fatigue, hip pain, and a high fever. Her mother Tonya, a
registered nurse, gave Addison
ibuprofen to treat the symptoms and eventually took her to a local hospital. Doctors there suspected a virus, but the pain and fever continued to get worse over the following few days. Eventually, Tonya took her daughter to the Diamond Children's Medical Center, a part of the
University of Arizona Medical Center. The day she arrived at the hospital, Addison went into
septic shock and was soon placed on ECMO therapy to sustain life. Doctors eventually discovered that she had contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of MRSA (probably from a scrape or scab). Other complications she encountered during her five-month hospital stay included
Stenotrophomonas maltophilia,
e. coli, a drug-resistant form of
pneumonia, a
pulmonary embolism, and a
stroke. She also underwent several surgeries.
Double-lung transplant In September 2011, Rerecich underwent a successful double-lung transplant surgery. Rerecich continued to engage in physical therapy and took dozens of medications daily to limit the chance of infection. ==Death==