Today, Katelyn is a beautiful and healthy three year old Girl full of life, love and innocent wonder. Unfortunately, her life didn't start out that way.
Each year about 2% of this countries birth population or about 500,000 babies are born premature (<37 weeks gestation). 6% of these 500,000 babies or less than 1% of all births in this country are before 28 weeks gestation. UNFORTUNATELY, for my family, this is where Katelyn's amazing story begins.
Katelyn was born on August 10, 2003 at 27 weeks Gestation and weighed a mere 2 pounds 9 ounces. In layman terms, she was born 3 months early.
A lot of development is lost by being three months early. Three months is the length of a child’s summer break. With three months remaining to an expected due date, most parents are spending their time thinking about baby names or what colors to paint their child's room.
That wasn’t the case for me and my wife Shannon. We found ourselves speeding down the 405 freeway towards Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills From Santa Clarita. The 15 minute drive felt more like 30 minutes. Shannon cried continuously and was doubled over in pain in the front seat of my truck as she experienced the premature labor pains. Once at the hospital, I scooped her up and ran past the emergency room to the labor and delivery department. Once there, the doctors quickly determined the labor was unstoppable. Our worst fears were becoming a reality… baby Katelyn would be delivered that day. Katelyn's heart rate was quickly dropping and because a natural birth would be taxing for her stature, the doctors quickly decided on an emergency caesarian section surgery.
Before they rushed my wife into surgery they called the NICU at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Burbank and summoned a team to come to Holy Cross Hospital to care for and transfer baby Katelyn to their NICU after she was delivered. Holy Cross did not have its own NICU.
The doctors were very stressed as they prepared my wife for the surgery. They requested that I did not attend the delivery and hurried me to a nearby waiting room adjacent to the hospital's nursery. As I spent a few minutes in the quiet waiting room, my head started to spin. I thought to myself …”what in the hell is going on. This can not be really happening to us. Thirty minutes earlier I was sitting at our breakfast table eating cereal and thinking about how nice a day it was outside and to now find myself all alone in a waiting room worrying about the well being of both my wife and my very early first daughter.” After a few minutes, I left the waiting room and sat in a chair in the hallway. And just as I did, one of the doctors came out of the operating room and ran past me with my daughter cradled in his arms and entered a secured area of the nursery that I couldn't see into or access.
Shortly after the doctor, a nurse came out of the operating room to inform me that I could see my wife in the recovery room. Shannon was still coming off of the anesthesia and was understandably very emotional about what she and the baby had been through.
After spending a few minutes with my wife, the NICU doctor pulled me away to the nursery to talk over my daughter’s situation. He showed me two chest x-rays. One x-ray was completely dark in color and the second was dark in color with a light colored area inside. He told me the second x-ray was of a normal chest and that the light areas where the lungs. He then explained that the first x-ray was my daughter’s and that her lungs were not visible. The x-rays pick up the differences between tissue densities. Normal lung tissue should have a different density than the surrounding tissue but my daughter's weren't. Because her lungs were underdeveloped, the doctor was forced to intubate here.
A couple of hours after Katelyn was transported to the NICU, Saint Joseph’s Hospital called my cell and urged me to the come to the NICU as quickly as I could. A doctor explained that they were having a hard time getting her stable.
Once I arrived, I’d say no less than a six person team was frantically working on her. One doctor took me into a side waiting room. He sat me down like you see on TV and told me, "Right now we have 25 premature babies here and your daughter is by far the sickest one. We are doing everything that we can for her but we are having a hard time keeping her stable. I don't know if you are a religious person or not but if you are and want to baptize her, I would suggest you do it sooner than later." I thought to myself ... “Holy Shit... did this doctor just say she is going to die?” I asked, "Are you doing all you can for her." He said, “We are and we will continue to give her excellent care except right now we have to see how she will responds to what we have done thus far.” Then he said, "Right now everything is in her hands. It’s up to her at this point." I thought, "WOW!... what a thing to say. It's up to her... what a burden to put on a newborn premature baby." Do babies know how to fight or even what they are fighting for?..(I feel that they do.) I asked if I could stay after visiting hours and he said, "You can stay as long as you want." I understood that to mean, we can bend the rules for you because I doubt your daughter will make it through the night.
As I sat by her side, I asked one of her nurses if I could touch her arm or hand and if I did would it bother her machine settings. She informed me that it would be ok and that they gave her a medication to keep her still by paralyzing her body and that she wouldn’t be able to move. When the nurse left, I ran my finger down her arm to the palm of her hand. When my finger reached her hand it closed around my finger tip. For the first time in her short life, she knew she was not alone. We had made a connnection. I told her I felt guilty for wanting her to live if the fight was to painful. Right then, I made her a promise. I told her that she has a family that loves her and wants her to win this fight for her life. I also told her that if the fight was to hard that I would understand and promised stay by her side until the very end. I stayed until 6am the next morning.
By 6 am she had been stable for a few hours. From that point on, I knew she was a fighter and would give it everything she could.
During Katelyn’s near 3 month stay in the NICU, we learned that all premature babies have to fight for their lives and battle through a whole slew of physical obstacles. During her total stay she had 7 blood transfusions. Within the first week, Katelyn had to have a heart surgery to close a valve so she could properly circulate her own blood. Katelyn suffered from respiratory distress syndrome. Because her lungs were underdeveloped, she lacked a protein that would kept her lungs from sticking together. Because of that doctors used ventilator pressure for nearly 4 weeks to keep her lungs open and to breathe for her. Parents quickly learn that the ventilators are a double edged sword. They are good in the beginning because they help keep your child alive but they can also cause injuries as well. Because of the initial high pressure, Katelyn suffered a collapsed lung. Other worries included Lung scaring, chronic lung disease, possible blindness and hearing loss. Fortunately, for all of us, Katelyn came off one of the mightiest ventilators without any problems. Today, we joke that she has hearing problems but in reality it’s just her being a typical hard of hearing three year old. The doctors thought for sure she would need glasses but her eye problems cleared up by age two.
During the first few weeks in the NICU the doctors check your child for brain bleeding with an ultrasound machine. Apparently, some bleeding is ok and the brain can absorb it but excessive bleeding can cause pressure on the brain and in turn can cause brain damage or cerebral palsy. Luckily for us, we never experience brain bleeds. Other babies unfortunately weren't as luck. Some that appeared to be doing well would take turns for the worst and never recover.
As things settled down for us, the NICU become our second home after a long day at work. We often stayed late into the night to read and talk to her as she rested.
As she got stronger, we were finally able to hold her after a month of the ventilator.
When she finally can home she also came home with sleep apnea and medication to help control it.
When a child is born prematurely, the portion of the brain that triggers the breathing response is underdeveloped. And we learned that until the brain fully develops, your child get to sleep with apnea monitor electrodes attached to her chest for almost a year. The monitor sounds like a smoke detector when it goes off. And it only seemed to go off at 3am. You haven't lived until you have been jolted out of bed by that booming sound and realize that in two seconds you are fully awake and running for your child's room ready to do C.P.R. until she comes back to life or until paramedics arrive. Fortunately, for us the alarm did its job and we never had to do C.P.R. I never knew what to expect as I entered her room. Conversely, after I left her room, I knew to expect no sleep... I’m talking about a complete adrenaline rush and a pounding heart rate for hours after the fact.
Today, Katelyn is a healthy and happy 3 year old. She is a head strong girl that likes things done her way. I am proud of her! She fought for her life and because she was successful there is a BIG WORLD out their waiting for her to make her mark it.
She has taught me that none of us have real problems if we have our health and the love and support of our families. She has given me perspective on what it means to have a bad day. When she was in the hospital, a bad day wasn’t failing to finish a race or getting a desired finishing time... a bad day would have been if Katelyn couldn't keep up the fight to live. I remember sitting next to her bed at night when she was in the hospital. I would say, "Come on Katelyn... you can do it!"
Ironically, these are the same words she uses when she see me during a race. She says, "come on Daddy... you can to it. Go Daddy go.... you can do it" And Boy... I've got to tell you.... Life doesn't get much better that! THANK YOU KATELYN!!!
My second inspirational hero is my cousin Seth(lower middle)who is in the U.S. Army. Seth has been in the Army for many years and is preparing for is second deployment to Iraq or the like. During his first tour in Iraq, I learned about the extreme climate conditions (hot and cold) he had to face as well as his live and death combat situations. (Due to reasons of National Security and my Aunt I can not disclose any specific information about him. That includes what he does or where he is or might be going). To me, none of that really effects his hero status anyway.
As a Soldier in the U.S. Army, he doesn’t get the option of going or not going to a hostile zone. He doesn’t get the option of avoiding deadly missions. He has literally no control over his immediate day to day life. He has accepted his duty to the United States and is doing his job without complaint.
He is up early, out late, in the cold, in the heat, no shower, army food, no food, bunk, no bunk, mission or no mission. Because Seth accepts these unpleasant conditions without complaint, I feel that I shouldn't have any complaints when it come to my triathlon training and the conditions that surround it. He is the one who get me out of my warm bed at 3am to train before work when I’m tired. Seth is the one that gets me to do all the other seemly unpleasant things like heading out on a cold bike ride or jumping into a cold pool or Pacific Ocean. When I am facing these unpleasantries, I think to myself... don’t be a PUSS! Get your butt out of bed, and get your ass on your bike or into that water. A little voice will say to me, "You think you are to cold or tired. It must be nice to feel sorry for yourself. Seth doesn’t have the option of being to cold or tired. Get up, get going, jump to it."
In closing, each hero motivates me in a different way and I thank them for that. Seth motivates me to get started when events are uncomfortable and Katelyn's life and death struggle keeps me motivated during difficult patches while training, racing and living life.
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