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The Miracle family representing Morton Junior High School is the Deter – Joni family, Madison, Brian and Taylor Deters. This is their story.
The story of Madison and Taylor began when they were born eight weeks earlier. Madison weighed 1 lb. 2 oz. and Taylor weighed 4 lbs 3 oz. "When we entered the OSF delivery room, we knew that delivery would be risky," said Joni Deters. "Throughout the pregnancy, we prayed that Madison would grow up enough so that NICU equipment could help her survive."
At the time of delivery, the doctors and the NICU staff were present. After the medical staff managed to revive Madison, they took the two girls to the NICU.
"Entering the NICU was overwhelming and emotional. Instead of cajoling our babies in the recovery room, as we once imagined, we could simply look at our babies through the transparent walls of their incubators. Throughout this time, the NICU staff made the space less terrifying for our family by educating and comforting us. "
Taylor spent three weeks at the NICU learning to eat, breathe and maintain his temperature. As a premature baby, Taylor sometimes forgets to breathe while eating, resulting in a drop in heart rate.
"We remember watching her limp while eating and having to stop and revive her," Joni Deters said. "At those times, our nurses constantly reminded us that it was normal and that she would be fine. After three weeks, we finally left the hospital with Taylor in his car bed to go home. It was a joyous day, both frightening and painful, as we brought home Taylor but Madison's NICU launches. "
Madison's NICU adventure lasted three months, during which she experienced many exciting moments. Because of its extremely delicate size, thirteen days pbaded before her parents could hold her for the first time. At first, Joni and Brian were allowed to sit next to Madison's incubator and place a finger on her. After almost a month, parents were finally able to take care of "kangaroo care" with Madison.
"It was an amazing feeling to finally be able to hold our little girl even though we were holding more ropes than baby! It was an excellent therapy for Madison too.
With Madison, every day during these three months was different. One day, everything would be relatively good and the next day she would turn around for the worst. She experienced several setbacks during her stay at the NICU, including a PNA, a small hole in the heart that did not close, an operation for a hernia, several blood transfusions and necrotizing enterocolitis.
Food was one of Madison's biggest challenges. For weeks, she could only eat through a feeding tube because she was too small for baby bottles. Finally, the nurses tried to feed him with a bottle, just the nipple. The bottle was huge for the 2 lb. baby. She could only take a few drops of milk during a feeding. A few days later, Madison's heartbeat started dropping drastically when her parents fed her.
"It was scary to sit and feed our baby and see it turn blue as the monitor started to beep," said Joni Deters.
After several of these episodes, the neonatologists prescribed Madison a biscuit swallowing test that revealed that Madison was sucking when she was drinking milk. Instead of the milk getting into his stomach, he flooded his lungs, which caused a drastic drop in heart rate. To help Madison, doctors immediately gave her a dense diet with chin support. "When you have a baby, you never imagine that you will give her a bottle as thick as the cream of wheat while holding her cheeks and chin to help her drink because she was too weak to drink from a bottle. It was definitely a stressful and surreal experience, "said Joni.
In addition, Madison developed necrotizing enterocolitis and was returned to Critical Room # 1 where her NICU stay began.
"We have been devastated for the least," said Joni Deters. "We were a day away from bringing our little girl home and we were afraid that she could not survive the infection."
Madison was instantly filled with antibiotics, her diet was interrupted and, again, the parents were unable to hold their little girl in their arms. After two weeks, Madison had improved enough to have a hernia operation and go home with her family. "
While the Deter family was leaving the children's hospital with Madison, they thought that they would not see the inside of the hospital before very long. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Two weeks later, Madison started running at high temperatures and had blood in her stool. After a quick visit to the doctor, Madison was sent directly to the hospital.
"At that time, our minds were upset, Madison having once again developed necrotizing enterocolitis and this time, it was worse," said Joni Deters.
During Madison's second visit, she was not allowed to eat and was filled with antibiotics. Every few hours, the staff performed an X-ray of his abdomen.
"Madison had a fabulous team of pediatric doctors and nurses," said Joni Deters. Since she was at the NICU for so long, the NICU nurses also came to visit Madison. They had become members of our "family" during our stay at the NICU. Madison's body responded well to antibiotics and two weeks later, the Deter family was able to bring the Madison baby home.
However, Taylor had her second trip to the Illinois Children's Hospital after suffering a very serious case of pneumonia 3 years later. After five visits to the doctor over a few days and a visit to a fast-care facility, the Deter family was back on the pediatric floor of the Illinois Children's Hospital. Taylor has been fighting for his life for two stressful weeks. "The first few days, Taylor seemed to drown while she was trying to catch her breath, breath after breath," Joni said.
"It was hard to sit and watch her not being able to help her. The nurses were great at providing emotional support and meeting all of Taylor's needs. "
After a few days when several potent antibiotics were not working, the medical team opted for an emergency surgery.
"We saw Taylor join us as they drove her into the operating room, playing in our minds with the thought of not knowing if this would be the last time we would see her alive." Three and a half hours later, the surgeon came out into the waiting room to talk to us.
The surgical team was able to take 21 ounces of puss from Taylor's lungs and insert a chest tube to drain more fluid out of his lungs. A few hours later, Taylor's parents were allowed to see her at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) where she was sleeping peacefully. She spent two more weeks with the chest tube draining her lungs and continuing to recover.
"We are extremely fortunate to have the Illinois Children's Hospital only 15 minutes away," said Joni Deters. "As you can see, our family has experienced many parts of the hospital over the years: NICU, USI Peds, PIC and General Pediatrics. During each experience, we worked with highly qualified medical teams, composed of doctors, nurses and surgeons, who are concerned about the medical and emotional needs of their patients and their families. "
"If it was not for them and for the state-of-the-art equipment at CHOI, Taylor and Madison would not be with us today."
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