Kelsay, Madison Elizabeth

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[left:315f9804a8]http://www.cherubs-cdh.org/Album/new/Kelsay-Madison2.jpg[/left:315f9804a8]Madison was born 12-28-01 at a healthy 7lbs, 9 oz. She was a very fussy baby and the doctor said it was just what some babies do. She never liked to bed held against you she would just cry. When she was about 2½ months old, we started the day off as usual. Later that day we had to go out so I put her in her car seat and everything seemed fine. Then out of the blue she started crying. She wouldn't stop, so we went home. I thought maybe she had gas because her tummy felt like it was tightening up a lot. I gave her some gas drops and that didn't seem to work. I then gave her some water thinking maybe it was constipation. When my husband came home about a hour later, she had gotten to the point where she wasn't really crying any more. She was more like gasping for air, so we rushed her to the Emergency Room in the next town over. At first, the nurse was pretty rude telling me she was dehydrated and was trying to give her water (which she was spitting back up) about 5 minutes or so later. They thought she looked a Little blue around the mouth and me and my husband thought she looked a little pale. They put something on her toe and decided from there they would give her oxygen. They then took her to have an x-ray. At this point, we didn't know what was going on. They came out and went straight to the phone to call a doctor to come in right away. The nurse during all this was asking my husband how I treated my daughter and if I seemed to be stressed with her (trying to insinuate that I did something to injure her). When the doctor came, he told us her left lung was collapsed and they needed to put in a chest tube. They didn't think she'd make it with out it. Then they where going to fly her to Wichita, a bigger city. When they put in the chest tube, it wouldn’t re-inflate her lung like they said it should. I flew with her and my husband had to drive 2½ hours away by car. The doctor looked at her and her x-rays when we got there and said she had a cyst on her lung and it had burst and they would have to take out part of her lung. It was so stressful on her and us. She had to wait till the next afternoon to go to surgery. In the meantime, they used a big needle and removed a lot of fluid they thought was from her lung. When they were finished with the surgery, the doctor came out and said that she actually had a diaphragmatic hernia and that they put her stomach and spleen back through the hole. They also said when they did that, her lung re-inflated back to normal – the fluid they removed was actually formula from her stomach. The doctor said that she was lucky, her spleen was acting as a plug allowing her lungs to develop normally. She was in the hospital for 5 days and then went home. It was hard for a few weeks. My mother came from out of state to help me with her. She didn't want to be held at all – she stayed in her swing most of the time. She got better each day and today is a happy healthy almost 12 month old. She's always smiling. We have a picture of the doctor holding Madison on her bedroom door so every time we go in there, we know how thankful we need to be that he saved our baby. We love you Madison! Love, mom, dad and all your family members.


Written by Madison's parents, Melanie and Brian Kelsay (Kansas)
2003