Nancy Brenner Peters This brought me to tears... Thank you mom :) WITHOUT A DOUBT!! I remember each time it happened for me, one a little more dramatic than the other. Katie Peters my second child had a 1st APGAR score of 9. She was perfectly healthy and was given to me to hold almost immediately after she was born to stare at, cuddle and bond with. I will LOVE her FOREVER! On the Other hand, Shelby Peters, my First Born had an APGAR score of 1 (the 1st three times it was taken) and was placed on my belly for about 2 seconds and then whisked away to be worked on by the doctors about ten steps from my bedside trying to stabilize her enough just to move her to the NICU down the hall. It seemed like hours, but it was probably only 15-20mins later that they wheeled her cart to my bedside and told me to quickly say my goodbyes before they took her to the NICU. She opened up her HUGE dark brown eyes and stared RIGHT through me as if to tell me that she wasnt going ANYWHERE! At that VERY moment, I bonded with her and BELIEVED in my heart that she could survive ANYTHING. We learned that she had aspirated large amounts of meconium and that she had less than a 10% chance of survival. Because her lungs were filled with meconium she couldn’t get any oxygen to flow through them. As a result they could not perform their normal task of oxygenating her blood to send to her other organs to keep her alive. Despite the devastating odds given to me at that moment, I was very scared, but always POSITIVE that she would pull through. This was largely based on my Faith combined with that life changing bonding staredown that we had just before they wheeled her off to the NICU. It took them another approximately 6-8 hours to stabilize her enough to move her the 1 mile trek from Grant Hospital to CCH~~Columbus Children’s Hospital (now Nationwide Childrens Hospital). The doctors at CCH determined that possibly her only chance of survival would be to put her on an experimental machine that acted as a heart & lung bypass while her body naturally absorbed the meconium. It was a very high risk treatment, but her odds IF successful on it were MUCH greater than if she were NOT put on it. So, the decision was to GO FOR IT! She was the 29th infant to be put on ECMO at CCH. ECMO stands for Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation. They surgically inserted a tube into her Jugular Vein and her Carotid Artery. Basically, the ECMO machine drains the UN-Oxygenated blood out of her Jugular Vein, takes it through a process that Oxygenates it, warms it back up to room temperature and then pumps it back in through a tube placed in her Carotid Artery. She was on it for 9 days. The entire time she was on blood thinners, antibiotics, a ventilator, IV fluids, and a feeding tube through her umbilical cord. She received Daily ultrasounds and scans to check for the most common side effect of bleeding into the brain. As risky as it was, she finally showed signs of improvement and they were able to wean her off of the machine. They had to be sure that she was okay before taking her off, because there was NO chance of putting her back once the tubes had been removed. Finally at almost 2weeks old, she was off the Ventilator and we were able to hold her in our arms for the first time! She was still on Oxygen, but with a lot less tubes to worry about. She stayed in the NICU about another two weeks longer and then a few days in a step-down unit before she came home. She was in the hospital for 1month total. I have had my challenges with her, but her beginning was definitely the BIGGEST one of all! I will never forget how scared I was (we ALL were) and how many people helped us through it with their LOVE, prayers, preparing of meals and moral support. Just one example was Pastor Bill Lyle who visited us every day while she was at CCH. Ironically, Shelby now works at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In a way, through her talents, she gets to Give Back to the place that actually saved her Life in the very beginning. She is and always will be my MIRACLE CHILD~~ and I will LOVE her FOREVER! :@)
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:55:10 +0000
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