The Miracle Child

Oy! If anyone watched the recent log by Geo of www.seekgeo.com, you will see one of the mistakes he made. Hilarious. I actually did my own stupid stunt vacuuming. I turned the vacuum cleaner on, and I heard it go on, so I vacuumed my entire floor. Then I stopped, and looked to see my floor still remained dirty! HUH?! How can this be?! I looked, and DOH! Stupid, stupid stupid... I had forgotten to switch the button to FLOOR instead of TUBE. So I vacuumed my floor while the floor button was off! DOH!! *smacks head against wall* I blame Geo for this!! His mistakes rub off on me now!! :)

Anyhow, you are probably wondering why I just titled this blog “The Miracle Child” I am talking about me. Why am I a miracle? I will divulge into this more, but I wanted to talk about a huge, medical problem I had concerning my stomach among many things that nearly took my life the day I was born. I mentioned some of things of what happened in my first blog and how it leads up to my hearing loss. However many people wanted to hear more specifics of what actually happened to me and how I survived the unthinkable.

February 1^st, 1987 was the day I was born. At 10:50am history started to be in the making. My mother gave birth to me. This was not going to be any normal birth by ANY standard. When I was being created in the womb, the skin cells concerning my stomach failed to develop stomach skin. So my organs inside, particularly, my intestines, both small and large, liver, spleen, stomach, kidneys, bladder, everything but my heart and lungs. They remained in my chest cavity. The organs that I highlighted spilled outside of my body and were formed inside their own sac, attached to the umbilical cord. I virtually had a hole in stomach skin. So you would be correct in thinking I did not have a belly button and to this day still do not.

No one knew this was going to happen. Mom had one ultra sound, maybe two, but both were at early stages to figure the sex I believe and to make sure there were no problems early on. When my mother went into labor, the organs came out first, and then I came out immediately. My mother remembers the silence following after and a huge loud “UH OH” from the doctor. No mother wants to hear that UH OH while lying on the bed trying to give birth. It was every mother’s worst nightmare. Immediately they apologized to my father and said “we have to get the baby out, no time to cut the cord” The doctors had my mother keep pushing until I was full out, then brought me away. One hand holding the baby the other holding my organs in the sac. The doctors were adamant from the start I was not going to survive. There was not a maybe or if, I was not going to survive. They told my parents I was going to die; there was nothing they could do. Every baby who had this before me died, why should I survive?

They rushed me to the operating table to close me up and try to insert the organs back inside me. They succeeded in doing so but had no hopes of survival for me. Then they flew me by helicopter to the St. Louis hospital, Cardinal-Glennon in St. Louis, Missouri. They did a few more operations for me. My parents drove up later two hours after giving birth to me. Yes, TWO Hours later. They came in, grandparents drove up etc etc. Just sitting around waiting for me to die. Parents were in the waiting room still wanting to pick a name out for me. They didn’t want me to die without a name. They were thinking either Alex or Andrew, they wanted an A name for me to continue the initials of A.S.T. Doctors came out and said we did everything we could, but we don’t think he will make it through the night. I do want to prepare you for the worst, and start calling family and friends. I had already crashed twice, and “died” twice from my heart stopping, and somehow “came back”.

The unthinkable happened though. I made it through the night. Doctors said “now, hold on, we doubt he will make it through the week now He is still very weak. By the way I was actually born late, 3 days late; I was not a premature baby. Then something else happened, they found my trachea and windpipe had been enclosed. They were trying to figure out why I could not get off the respirator. A nurse spoke up and figured it was something involving that. They figured it out and operated on me more, about 5 surgeries on my neck. That was fixed.

More operations happened, more and more to fix me up. Each not knowing if I’d make the next night. I was given a medication so my body would not reject the organs. The side effect was that I could lose my hearing, some all or maybe little. Parents really didn’t have a choice, if I did not take it I WOULD die guaranteed, no ifs or but.

I remained in the ICU for nearly 2 months, and then regular room for the third month. Babies around me were dying of different things. Parents had to deal with me and then being surrounded by other parents who were losing their child to different things. Slowly hoping I would not become another causality of the ICU. They decided to name me Alexander, for Greek being ‘Protector of Man”. Fitting isn’t it? Finally after three horrendous months, when doctors were absolutely sure nothing else was wrong, I was given the ok to go home.

The day I got to go home, was a miracle for my parents. They never, ever thought they would get to take me home. Doctors, nurses everyone knew me on that floor. Calling me the miracle baby, or child. Doctors stated medically I should have died, there is no reason I should have lived. Perhaps there was a higher God that needed me for something and was not going to let me die no matter what.

My poor mother every day she would drive two hours back and forth to visit me all day every day while my father worked at a local news channel. 8:00am the visiting hours opened up, mom was there. 8:00pm when visiting hours closed, mom came home. She was so afraid of leaving me in case it was the last time I was going to be alive for the night. She did all this while being 24 years old, married to my father, and going to college all at the same time.

I don’t know how she did it. I know she couldn’t do it again. But I told her, she didn’t know she COULD NOT do it. She didn’t sit to think if she could do it or not. She just DID IT. Didn’t ask questions didn’t sit and cry (ok maybe she did once in awhile ha-ha) but she didn’t know she couldn’t take care of me. She just did.

Doctors claimed I was the only baby east side of the Mississippi river at the time of my birth to survive the medical condition I had. Another boy, 2 years older then I also had it but if I recall he did not lose is hearing like I did. Also my situation was much worse I had a stage 3 of the condition whereas he had stage 1 I believe.

So what did I have exactly? Glad you asked. I had a condition called Omphalocele. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalocele

This website talks a bit about it and such. Very informative. It is still rare, so you cannot find much information about it but the case itself is not unknown. Doctors use my case in St. Louis and all over with other doctors to try and figure out how I survived when no one else had survived it before me.

This is my story and I hoped this brought a better understanding of what has happened to me and eventually lead to my hearing loss. I became stronger as a result of this, and while I don’t remember anything, I see the pictures, the stories my mom says through her tears and just only sit back going “thank you” and wondering why I survived. I don’t take much for granted that’s for sure, and always, always appreciate the friendships I develop along the way, online and in person and hope I make a difference in each persons live as they do for me no matter how small or big it is.

Alex