* * *
Leaves covered the streets as Jerry drove Kendra home at last.
“Wow! I went into the hospital in the winter and it’s nearly winter again. Gee, time flies when you’re having fun, right, Jerry?”
“Sweetheart, we have a whole lifetime still ahead of us. You ready for this? I’m still worried you’re not up to a big family celebration.”
“Hey, I was beaten and drowned, meant to die, but I beat all the odds. I have reason to celebrate! C’mon Jerry, let’s go begin the rest of our lives!”
Mirror Images
In the corner of his eye, he saw her sneaking up behind him. He pretended as if he didn’t. She would quickly find the tables turned when she was the one frightened out of her mind.
That’s right; just a little closer. Come on. Atta girl!
When she was within inches, he twirled around and began tickling her ribcage. She started squirming and laughing so hard she dropped the thing she held behind her back.
Michael let her go and bent down to pick up the purple and white stick. Lorna’s laughing subsided. He stood up, looked at her with his head bent to the side and a puzzled look on his face.
“I know that look, Michael Miller. Why so confused? You’ve seen a pregnancy test before.”
“Yes I have, I’m just not sure I’m reading this one right.”
“Well, honey, it only has one word on it so that it’s so simple even a man can read it!” Her laughter bubbled out of proportion to the teasing she was administering to her husband of ten years.
“It says … Lorna, it says …”
She threw her arms around him and kissed him hard. “Yes, Michael, it says we’re going to have a baby!”
They danced around the bedroom for a few seconds until Michael stopped so abruptly he nearly fell, holding onto Lorna as if to steady her before she toppled over with him in a heap on the floor. He stood stock-still, staring into her face, his own eyes large and round in a face quickly losing all color.
“We can’t be doing that, Lorna! We can’t be dancing around like we have springs on our feet. It might do something to the baby.”
“What, like jar it loose? Honey, I’m a better shock absorber than that!”
“Well, the other times …”
“Those didn’t happen because we danced for joy, Michael, they happened because …”
He held her to his chest and kissed the top of her head. “Yes honey, I know.”
Lorna leaned back in his arms and smiled through her tears. “This little girl is tough; I can just tell. You’ll be screening boyfriends before you know it.”
“Oh really? And just how do you know it’s a girl? I think that before I know it, I’ll be the one in the bleachers screaming, ‘That’s my boy!’”
“And then he’ll look at the camera and say, ‘Hi Mom!’”
Michael picked Lorna up and twirled her around as he laughed. “We’ll see about that, ‘Mom!’”
She disentangled herself to pick up the phone to make an appointment with her doctor.
“You have an opening tomorrow at 3:00?” She looked to see Michael nodding his head enthusiastically. “Okay, we’ll be there!”
* * *
Lorna smoothed the paper gown down to her knees as she sat on the side of the examination table. She was always happy when she could release her feet from the stirrups.
“Lorna, I estimate you’re nearly eight weeks. I wish you’d come in sooner.”
“After the other times, I felt, well, I …”
Michael took her hand in his. “Doc, I think she was afraid she’d jinx herself. She’d only missed one period and she wanted to be more confident of herself.” He smiled as Lorna nodded and squeezed his hand in gratitude.
“I can understand that, Lorna. Get this prescription filled for prenatal vitamins and start them immediately. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon with the results of your blood work, but I think everything looks fine. Don’t stop living, but do everything in moderation. I want the baby to thrive but I want a healthy mother, too. Michael, take care of that for me, will you?”
The answering grin could light up the darkest street in any town. “You can count on me, Doc!”
Walking down the street after leaving the doctor’s office, Michael felt a tug on his hand that had been holding Lorna’s smaller one.
“What is it, honey? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong, Michael, but you look like the cat that ate the canary with that big ol’ goofy smile plastered all over your face.”
“Hey, I have every reason in the world to be wearing this goofy smile. And all the expectant fathers are wearing them now. It’s the latest fashion rage, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Is that so? Well, far be it from me to advise such a fashion icon as yourself, Michael Miller. I’ll just walk beside you and pretend I don’t notice everyone staring at you.”
“They’re only staring because I’m walking with the most beautiful pregnant woman in the world.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize that. Okay, then; carry on!”
As chance would have it, they were standing in front of a baby boutique. Michael was salivating over a small soft football in the window display. He grinned as he started into the store when he once again felt the tug on his arm.
“No honey, please, not yet. I feel as if it’s tempting fate. Let’s wait until I’m a little further along before we buy anything for our daughter; who, by the way, may or may not, appreciate a football!”
The next few weeks were blessedly uneventful with Lorna taking her vitamins as promised and Michael hovering over her to the point of occasional irritation, also as promised.
The next visit to the doctor’s office had them walking on Cloud Nine.
“Well, here’s a nice surprise for you both. How do you feel about having twins?”
Lorna began to cry and Michael laughed out loud. “How do we feel? Thank you, God, that’s how we feel!” He leaned down and kissed his wife soundly. “I guess we better go buy two footballs now, honey.”
His wife chuckled and told the doctor, “Michael’s just certain that we’re having a son. Well, we might have two girls, Mr. Miller! How do you like that?”
Dr. Tillman clapped Michael on the back. “Well, sir, you should’ve bet on that one!”
The couple froze, then began to weep as they smiled. Michael was the first to find his voice.
“Oh Lorna—boys! We’re going to have two sons!”
It was another two months before Michael and Lorna’s earth tilted on its axis. It began with a routine ultrasound that proved anything but routine was going to be the agenda for the rest of the pregnancy.
“Lorna, Michael, I want to talk to you about what the ultrasound images are showing. I hate to have to tell you this.”
Lorna took Michael’s shaking hand into both of her cold ones. They glanced at each other quickly then turned their full attention back to the physician, their breath held in suspended fear.
Dr. Tillman pulled in a deep breath. “The babies have what we call TTTS, or Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome. It’s a condition in which the twins are connected by blood vessels. I’ll be honest with you; it’s not good.”
Lorna touched the physician’s hand as if contact would lend a lie to his words. When his expression didn’t change, her eyes filled with tears. “What does this mean? Did I do something wrong, something to hurt my babies?”
The doctor pulled a stool closer to the terrified mother and took her hand from Michael.
“The early pregnancy events responsible for TTTS are in place before the mother knows she is pregnant, which means there is no primary prevention for TTTS. It is not caused by hereditary, genetics or by anything you did or did not do, nor is it caused by anything the babies are doing because they are innocent bystanders to events in their placenta.”
Michael’s voice shook as he asked, “Can you tell us what it means, in a way that we can understand?”
Dr. Tillman used his free hand to cover the father’s hand on his rapidly bouncing knee. “TTTS is a disease that strikes about 10% of all identical twin pregnancies. This serious condition occurs when twins share a single placenta, which contains blood vessels connecting the twins’ blood streams. In a sense, they are like conjoined twins, but are connected in the placenta instead of their bodies. One baby, the recipient, may get too much blood, while the other, the donor, is losing blood through the abnormal connections.”
Lorna whispered, “What does that do to the babies?”
The OB/GYN sighed. “I’m going to give it to you straight. The recipient may die in heart failure from a cardiovascular system overload, and subsequent over-production of quarts of amniotic fluid. The donor may die from the loss of blood, and tends to have very little amniotic fluid. While the twins begin development totally normal, the placenta abnormalities cause their subsequent death or cause serious birth defects. The loss rate may be as high as 80 to 100 percent for twins who develop TTTS at mid-pregnancy, or the second trimester, which is where you are, Lorna. The babies may die in the uterus or at birth from prematurity. More than half of those who survive suffer from many serious birth defects including cerebral palsy. In other words, one twin literally drains the life out of the other. Left untreated, there is an 80 to 90 percent that both babies will die.”
“If left untreated … what’s the treatment?” Her voice wavered on the last syllables.
“I suggest that you consider unfortunately limited options. First of all, you can terminate one pregnancy, or both. Or do nothing and let the pregnancy naturally evolve into a miscarriage.”
Lorna was shaking her head fast enough to cause her hair to hang in her eyelashes even before the sentence was completed. Michael just held her hand as she left no doubt that this was not an option.
“Then I think we should reduce the excess amniotic fluid that has developed around the recipient baby, done via amniocenteses. There’s a 50 percent chance this procedure might balance the amount of amniotic fluid surrounding each baby and hopefully spur the placenta into regularity once again.”
“What if that doesn’t correct it?” Lorna had clearly decided to fight with everything in a mother’s arsenal.
“The next option would be an in-utero surgery called fetoscopic laser occlusion of the connecting vessels. But I have to warn you, that if you are going to attempt to carry these babies, we should remove the excess fluid today, immediately. Because of the situation’s urgency, time is a tight commodity for us right now.”
Michael’s face portrayed all the anxiety and love he possessed. “Honey? What do you think?”
Lorna placed her hand on her husband’s face and without looking away from him, said, “Dr. Tillman, I’m ready when you are.”
After removing over one and half liters of fluid, Dr. Tillman told Lorna to go home and stay in bed for the next four days.
“I’ll call you to check your progress while I make a few calls to a specialist I’ve read about. I don’t feel comfortable in proceeding past amniocentesis fluid reduction in this case. I’ll keep you informed of what I find out. Of course, if you have any type of problem, no matter how trivial you may think it to be, go to the hospital emergency room as fast as you can.”
* * *
Being an active person, lying in bed hours on end was difficult for Lorna but she was determined to give her babies every chance she could.
The next evening the phone rang and Michael answered it before coming into the bedroom where she lay, the cordless phone to his ear.
“Yes, Dr. Lyons, I’m here with her now. I’m going to put you on speaker so we can both hear what you have to say.”
“Lorna, hello, my name is David Lyons and I’m calling you at the request of Dr. Tillman. I understand you and your babies are in trouble.”
Lorna’s eyes grew moist at the word trouble.
“Yes Dr.Lyons, were certainly are. Can you help us?”
“Michael, grab a pen and paper to take notes. I’ve got a few ideas and quite a bit of information to give you. Lorna, the first order of business is for you to remain where you are—in bed. I want you to begin drinking a dietary supplement, something like Ensure or Boost. Your blood work shows you’re becoming anemic and you want to be strong enough to fight for those boys growing inside you.”
Michael jerked so hard on a nightstand drawer, looking for pen and paper, the drawer pulled free and hit the floor with a loud thud. He grinned sheepishly at Lorna who smiled and slightly shook her head.
The voice on the other end of the speaker sounded hollow. “Michael? You didn’t pass out on me, did you?”
Lorna laughed. “No, he’s just trying to destroy the furniture. His kingdom for a pencil! Okay, Dr. Lyons, he now has something to write on and something to write with. We’re ready.”
“Until you reach a certain gestational age, you may have to have amniotic fluid reduction again. If fluid reduction doesn’t fix the problem, then we’ll operate, using a small 3.5 millimeter scope to identify the connecting vessels, then use the laser to coagulate them. The twins would then become separate and the passage of blood from one to the other stops. This surgery is performed in ‘pre-viable’ pregnancies, less than 25 weeks, where delivery of the TTTS twins is not an option. So, for now, drink the supplements, stay in bed, and continue the amniocenteses, if necessary. Remember that your twins would only be candidates for the laser surgery if they meet certain criteria, which include severe size differences between them or evidence of impending heart failure. I’ll be in touch with you and Dr. Tillman and hope that we never have to actually meet. That would mean that the simple measures would correct the condition and make surgery unnecessary.”
A week later Lorna had to have another amnioreduction, removing nearly one liter of fluid. That’s when it was determined that the twins’ condition was worsening. The recipient’s heart muscle was thickening and the outlook was bleaker than they imagined. It was then that Lorna and Michael felt it was time to call in Dr. Lyons; Dr. Tillman fully agreed.
Dr. Lyons arrived the next morning as Lorna was being prepped for surgery. He came into her room and shook Michael’s hand.
“Well, kids, I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. You seem like nice people but I really wish I didn’t have to meet you, at least, not under these circumstances.” He smiled and put his hand on Lorna’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, Mama? Ready for surgery?”
Her voice trembled, “As ready as I can be. All I want to do is give my boys a chance to live.”
“That’s exactly how I feel, too, Mrs. Miller. Now here comes the part that some people don’t agree with but I feel it’s as necessary as the anesthesia they’ll be using in the operating room.”
Michael’s eyes were opened wide and his face pale. Lorna forced a confidant smile but neither one asked what he meant.
“Lorna, I don’t know what your religious leanings are and it truly isn’t important that I do know, but mine is that I pray before every procedure I perform. I believe I only have the knowledge and skill that God gave me and I always ask Him to assist me in the operating room. I’ve never done surgery without Him and I don’t intend to today.”
Michael cried openly and Lorna covered Dr. Lyons’ hand with her own. “That’s what we were doing when you walked into the room. We wouldn’t even consider going into surgery without Him, either.”
There were some ups and downs, some good days and some not so good, following that surgery. It was all worth it, when, fifteen weeks later the Miller boys were welcomed into the world of intensive care, terrified parents, harried nurses, and two doctors who had never been confident of their survival.
They are now strong, healthy, loud boys who like nothing more than giggling every time their father misses a football pass.
For more information, or to donate, visit the Twin to Twin Syndrome Foundation web address at:
http://www.tttsfoundation.org
Superhero
“Logan, come on! Tom? Hey, guys, push the pause button and let’s eat. Time for dinner.”
From the other room she heard an abrupt silence as the movie was paused, followed by a low groaning.
“Aw, Daddy, it was getting to the good part, too!”
“The good part that you’ve seen a million times already? You already know what’s going to happen, Logan.”
“Yeah, I know but …”
“After we help Mommy clean up the dinner dishes we can go back to see the good part, okay?”
Logan’s small lips were turned downward and he shuffled his feet, his blue cape hanging in long folds at his back.
“Wow, I never saw a super hero act like that.” Logan didn’t look up at his mother. “C’mon, Super Britches, perk up. I made chicken nuggets—your favorite.”
Logan raised his head and she saw a face identical to her husband’s wreathed in a big smile.
“Aw, Mom, my name ain’t Super Britches.”
“Oh no? What is your name again?”
His four year old laughter made her heart swell. “Aw, you know my name. I’m Super Duper Duper Boy!” He looked at his father and shook his head in consternation. “Daddy, Mommy’s acting like she don’t know my name. Ain’t that silly?”
Tom grinned at Hailey as he gave her a brief hug. He answered his son while looking into her shining blue eyes. “Why, yes, I believe you’re right, Logan. Mommy is a silly girl.”
Hailey playfully punched his bicep. “Silly Mommy is going to make Daddy sorry for that remark. Just for that, oh, Father of Super Duper Duper Boy, you have to finish cutting that broken limb on that tree right after supper.”
Tom’s face fell in mock disappointment. “But Mooom, I wanted to finish watching the movie with my side-kick, Super Kid.”
Logan looked up at the ceiling and shook his head slowly. “Daaaad, that ain’t my name! My name is …”
Tom smacked his forehead. “Oh, yeah, your name is Super Duper Boy. I’m sorry. I’m getting old and I forget things like that.”
Safe in the Heart of a Miracle: More True Stories of Medical Miracles Page 4