Rupe, Brook Sue

[left:8c18289ace]http://www.cherubs-cdh.org/Album/new/rupe2.jpg[/left:8c18289ace]I was five months pregnant and had just had a routine ultrasound when we found out that our baby had a diaphragmatic hernia. That next day our doctor sent us to a University of Utah Medical Center, which was 200 miles away. There we were told what are baby actually had and what could be done. The news was devastating to us. We waited for four more months before our baby was going to arrive. It was the longest four months of my life, but a lot of prayers and support by our family helped us prepare.

We were scheduled for a C-section on Monday, March 25, 1996.We had to travel to Salt Lake City because they had specialists who could handle our baby. As nature has it trying to plan the day and hour of a baby's arrival is not always perfect. On Thursday, March 21 my water broke at 1:30 a.m. We went to the local hospital and they immediately called life flight to transport us the 200 miles to Salt Lake. There at 10:25 a.m. our precious daughter Brooke was born. She made no noise when she was lifted out of my stomach, and they immediately took her in another room where a team of specialists was waiting.

Then at noon they transported her to Primary Children's Medical Center. I'll never forget the first time I saw her. It was so overwhelming that I could not handle it. She had so many tubes and monitors hooked to her that you could hardly recognize that she was a baby. When she was four days old, she had her surgery to repair the hole in her diaphragm. After she had her surgery, she still struggled with her blood pressure, and still not able to breathe on her own. When she was two weeks, they tried to take the ventilator off but only after two days she was diagnosed with pneumonia, and put back on a ventilator for another week.

After she was finally off the ventilator, they started trying to feed her. This was a problem that would keep her in the hospital for the next three weeks. Brooke had a problem with her feedings she would have therapy to help her learn how to suck on the bottle. She was also diagnosed with GER so getting the food to stay down was another problem. They finally decided to put in an NG tube because she was losing weight. After a week on the tube they decided that she had gained enough weight to go home. So after six weeks in the hospital we finally took our little girl home.

We had a home nurse come in daily to check her lungs, weight, and NG tube, and a therapist to help in case of any developmental delays. This helped us tremendously with the care for Brooke. Today she still has GER but it is under control, and we still go to the doctor more often then most. Looking at Brooke today, you would not know what she went through just to be here. She is a healthy happy three year old, almost four, who runs with the other kids maybe just a little slower, but the grin on her face is bigger. She has taught us more about love in her four years than we have ever known.


Written by Brook's mom, Tonya Rupe (Idaho)
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