Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love

by Bret Baier

  A parent can make himself/herself crazy looking at those monitors, worrying about what beep will be next. But we had a feeling from the start Paul was going to power through recovery. Every picture we took of him—even at the beginning when he was still filled with drugs—he managed a smile. Every one!

  As the days ticked by, the smiles got bigger. When we were moved to the heart and kidney floor (out of intensive care), I pushed the couch next to his hospital bed to sleep close to him, rubbing his back as he fell asleep and then holding his hand that was still wrapped in tape with an IV coming out of it (negotiating wires and tubes at bedtime is a challenge).

  I definitively knew Paul was back to himself when at 3:00 a.m. he turned to me and said, “Daddy, this hospital stuff is boring.” At which point I said, “Yes, buddy, it is. Let’s watch another Scooby Doo on my iPad.” So at 3:10, he smiled and gave me a kiss as Freddie, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby headed out on their next adventure. We didn’t make it to the demasking of Blackbeard’s ghost before Paul was back asleep. Well before the ever-present “I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!” Paul was breathing deep, and all the vital signs on the monitor were looking A-OK.

  Paul lit up the most when his friend Alice Caroline came by for a visit. He perked up and laughed out loud for the first time (a great sign because laughing triggers coughs, and in open-heart surgery recovery coughing is key for clearing out the lungs, even though it’s really painful in his chest that was just cut open days earlier). While his voice was weak, he talked about Halloween costumes and parties to come, as though the surgery had never happened. All with bright smiles.

  Before long, Paul was walking around the nurses’ station with a mobile monitor saying hi to everyone who walked by, a mini ambassador who was determined to walk his way out of the hospital. (We had told him the more he walked without feeling bad, the faster he’d be able to head home).

  The biggest challenge was getting him to take medicine. He was making amazing progress. His vital signs were improving every day, but he had one more thing to check off the list before we could go home…he had to show the nurses he could take Advil and Tylenol by mouth before he could leave.

  Paul has always had a serious problem taking medicine. It’s like his taste buds just recoil even before it gets to his mouth, and then his mind kicks into full reject mode.

  I know there have been tough negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, the Russians and the U.S., Donald Trump and whichever business he’s buying, but Paul was giving them a run for their money.

  At one point, I was standing next to the nurse saying, “Okay, we’re going to count backwards from 10 and then you are going to chug this medicine. “Ten, nine, eight.” And Paul yelled, “WAIT!!! WAIT!!! What about starting at one hundred?”

  We went through every flavor produced before we came upon the chewable grape versions of both medicines—and with a lemonade or Gatorade chaser—he could take it and keep it down. Success!

  As hard as it was to believe, just five days after his third open-heart surgery, Paul was discharged. We had something to do first, though.

  Two days earlier, when Paul was still in intensive care, Dr. Jonas introduced Amy and me to another couple. Dr. Jonas said, “In all my years of doing this, your two children have some of the most complex hearts I’ve seen, and as unique and rare as they are, they’re almost exactly the same.” He told us the complexity was a 12 out of 10 for both.

  This family’s baby boy, who was now five months old, had had two other surgeries at another hospital and then, after not seeing an improvement in his health, these parents reached out to Dr. Jonas. The baby was heading to his third major surgery in his short five-month-old life, a life that had been spent almost exclusively in the hospital.

  We shared our stories about how we managed things, about how amazing Dr. Jonas is, and about the things that helped us get through: prayers, keeping healthy, being there for each other, and visualization.

  For Amy, it was imagining Paul running around on the beach and playing in the sand. For me, seeing him walking down the first fairway with me and starting a round of golf. The couple, teary, nodded at each other knowingly. We gave them a hug and said we’d check in soon.

  Now, before we left the hospital, we decided to bring the little boy some gifts: Cookie Monster, Handy Manny, and Spider-Man balloons Paul had been given and a little teddy bear.

  We walked to his room in CICU, with Paul leading the way. The boy had taken a turn and wasn’t there. They were prepping him for surgery early. His father was there, shaken and sad. He was appreciative of the gifts and said he would make sure his son saw them when he got out of surgery and woke up.

  We gave him a hug, knowing that they were starting the scary journey again, a journey this boy had been through two times before and a journey Paul was walking away from after just five days in the hospital.

  Walking out of the room, all three of us holding hands, Paul said these words:

  “That daddy looks really sad and scared for his boy. We should pray for that family. We should pray for that boy.”

  Amy and I looked at each other with a loving look, both saying at the same time to Paul, “We should, Paul, and we will, every night.”

  And we did. And we have—each bedtime.

  At the end of that week, after being home, Paul went back into his class for a short time. He talked to his kindergarten classmates about his surgery, thanked the kids for their cards and presents, and essentially held another news conference, taking questions and again lifting up his shirt, this time to show them his NEW scar.

  At my work, another special thing was happening. I take the Special Report staff to dinner every so often for Idea Dinners, to kick around ideas about how to improve the show in some way. They came up with Special Report Gives Back, an effort to raise money or give time as a show to the local community in some way for charity.

  The last dinner in August, with Paul’s surgery looming sometime in September, they decided to make raising money for Children’s National their first Special Report Gives Back, which humbled me.

  So with my staff running point, Amy and I committed to be a part of the Race for Every Child, the first annual 5K run/walk for Children’s on the National Mall the first weekend in October.

  We weren’t sure if we would be able to attend the race. Frankly, we didn’t know if Paul would be up for going downtown to watch other kids run or walk while he couldn’t. Little did we know that because of Paul’s amazing recovery he would want to and would be able to walk in the 5K.

  So there we were, all donning our race T-shirts early on a Saturday morning…alongside an amazing turn out from Special Report and the Fox D.C. bureau. Our three-year-old, Daniel turned to Paul and said, “I’m running with Daddy, you walk with Mommy.”

  Not that we let the three-year-old decide, but he did. When Daniel said he’d “run with Daddy,” it was in a stroller. So I ran with Daniel as he told me from his perch what songs to play on my iPhone, and Amy and Paul started walking next to one of Paul’s school friends and his mom.

  Daniel ran the last 20 yards with me as we crossed the finish line pushing the stroller, and we waited for Paul and Amy. Amy said that a few times Paul got tired and she put him on her back. But he quickly wanted back down to keep walking.

  And after a while I could see them in the distance walking up to the finish line, Paul proudly strolling and holding Amy’s hand. The woman on the microphone for Children’s National saw Paul approaching, and over the loudspeaker she said, “Here comes Paul Baier—just seventeen days ago he had his third open-heart surgery at Children’s, and today he’s crossing the finish line after walking 3.1 miles!”

  A huge cheer erupted all over the square. Paul’s smile broadened from ear to ear. Daniel screamed, “Yay, Paulie!” I was snapping pictures but I didn’t know if they were coming out because tears were streaming down my face.

  I looked at Amy
and she was crying, too, as Paul stepped across the finish line. Three weeks and four days after I wrote the last e-mail in that surgery center waiting room our son was walking proudly across the finish line of a 5K raising money for the hospital and the doctors and nurses who have saved his life more than once.

  It was powerful. We are blessed—truly blessed. The event raised 700 thousand dollars for the hospital.

  As gratifying and glorious as that finish line was, unfortunately, it’s not the end of our race.

  Paul may have more angioplasties (or tune-ups as his doctors call them). He may have another surgery eight to ten years from now or, if we’re lucky, technology may improve to a point that he might indeed have had his last open-heart surgery. Time will tell.

  But we’re not dwelling on all of that right now. We’re doing our best to focus on living and celebrating every smile!

  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers—they truly helped us through the toughest hours and the darkest days.

  Our race continues…

  Epilogue

  Washington, D.C.—January 6, 2014—6:58 p.m.

  “…As always, thank you for inviting us into your home tonight and for every night over the past five years. That’s it for this Special Report, fair, balanced, and still unafraid.”

  After my sign-off, the red lights on the studio cameras click off, stage manager, Mary Pat Dennert shouts “Clear!” and my 1,306th Special Report is history.

  As I fully expected, tonight’s show was extremely lively and filled to the brim with a wide range of interesting stories: chief national correspondent Jim Angle on the confusion about the Obamacare enrollment numbers; senior foreign affairs correspondent Greg Palkot on the rise of al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge on Senator Rand Paul’s class action lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA); chief Washington correspondent James Rosen on the U.S. Supreme Court and Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages; and with tonight’s last ever Bowl Championship Series (BCS) football game being played (Florida State vs. Auburn)—William La Jeunesse filed a story for us about the dollars and cents of amateur competition in America.

  As always, the All Star Panel—Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson of NPR, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer really brought their “A” games. We were fortunate also to have an on-set commentary from senior political analyst Brit Hume on the political and practical fallout from the upcoming congressional fight over extending unemployment benefits.

  We ended tonight’s program with a special segment marking my fifth anniversary anchoring the show. It was a fun bit of tape the staff put together that brought back a lot of fond memories. It reminded me how often we have taken the show on the road over the past five years—especially during election season.

  Highlights on the tape included some snippets from a March 2010 interview I did with President Obama right before the big health care vote in the House of Representatives, as well as some of my 2011 interview with then presidential contender Mitt Romney on the eve of the GOP primaries.

  The tape reminded me once again that the Special Report team of correspondents, producers, videographers, and editors is a very special group of people. They never cease to amaze me with their creativity and problem-solving skills—sometimes just seconds before that red light comes on.

  A bit of superstition perhaps, but thirty seconds before we go on the air every night, I always say, “Good show everyone.” If I happen to forget, Mary Pat will clear her throat as a signal to make sure I remember. Doug Rohrbeck, Special Report executive producer and the voice in my head for the past five years, speaks to me in my ear from the control room through what’s called an IFB. Doug quickly follows my “Good show…” with a “Good show!” of his own usually followed by some addendum to whatever the running joke of the day has been.

  After being together for five years we are all pretty much convinced the show will crash, burn and become an unmitigated disaster if I forget to utter my innocuous “Good show everyone.” One time I did forget and halfway into the show I lost my voice mid-sentence and actually shed a tear trying not to cough. After the segment, my mom e-mailed me to ask, “Were you getting emotional on that story or were you having throat problems?”

  As much as it possibly can be around a fully operational newsroom on a very busy day, my Special Report anniversary created a bit of a festive atmosphere around the bureau today. In fact, midday, Amy and the boys made a surprise visit to help me celebrate with my colleagues. Three-year-old Daniel was particularly interested in the anniversary cake that happened to have a giant picture of me on it. “That’s Daddy on there!” he laughed. Daniel is a really happy kid—a bright ray of sunshine who absolutely adores his older brother, Paul. He laughs all the time and is a real character. Daniel also happens to have a bit of a sweet tooth and the “Daddy Cake” was his latest target. James Rosen, a great friend, amazing correspondent and writer, insisted he have “my head on a platter”—cutting his own slice with surgical precision to achieve his goal.

  Mark Twain, perhaps apocryphally, is often quoted as saying, “the key to success is getting started.” Properly attributed or not, by all accounts I was bitten by the media bug and got my start in journalism at a very early age. As a young boy I remember pressing my face up to the television set as I watched the national political conventions and those network reporters wearing their space-age looking headsets as they tried to navigate around the balloons and confetti on the convention floor.

  How cool would that be to wear those funky looking headsets and romp around the convention floor like you owned the place interviewing one interesting newsmaker after another. Little did I suspect at the time that one day I would actually be one of those floor reporters—funky headsets and all.

  And now—all these years later—anchoring the flagship political news program for Fox News Channel. Other than marrying the woman of my dreams, pursuing journalism as a career has proven to be the best decision of my life.

  Being able to write, cover great stories, travel, and interview a long list of newsmakers over the years has been exhilarating. Often, when I travel around the country, folks come up to me at airports or on the street and ask me questions like, “What’s the most interesting story you’ve ever covered?”—or—“What’s so-and-so really like in person?” That second question is almost always about my good friend and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. The answer—Charles is brilliant, funny, and a very caring person. He has also been a great source of strength to me throughout all of Paul’s hospitalizations.

  I don’t know how others who are on television feel about it, but whenever I travel around the country I absolutely love meeting folks who watch the show. It is a blessing and never a bother. I greatly respect the relationship with the viewers and understand that it’s a personal decision for them to choose whom to watch every night. Being able to meet many of these folks during my travels is always a big treat for me.

  No matter how busy or exciting working in television news is—and it is—the most important part of my schedule starts about an hour after the red lights on the studio cameras fade to dark. Even though I get to mix it up with VIP newsmakers just about every day of the week, and I could literally spend hours discussing the important issues of the day with the likes of Brit Hume, Steve Hayes, Mara Liasson, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Juan Williams, Kirsten Powers, Chuck Lane, and Nina Easton—my real All Star Panel starts the moment I get home and can spend time with Amy and the boys. If I’m lucky, I can get home in time to read Paul a story and put him to bed. Daniel is usually already conked out by the time I walk in the door.

  Tonight, when I walk into the house I open the door and Paul runs up to me hollering “Daddy!” I have been a general assignment reporter, bureau chief, national security correspondent, White House correspondent, and now a network anchor. But, for me—Daddy—is the best title in the universe. An added bonus tonight when I get home�
��Daniel is also still awake. He, of course, followed right behind big brother Paul yelling “Daddy!” too—copying Paul’s every move. I immediately thought back about that big piece of anniversary cake that must still be coursing through Daniel’s three-year-old system. Big hugs and then a kiss from Amy who followed the boys to the front door.

  “Congrats again, babe. That’s a real milestone,” Amy said—referring to the five years at Special Report.

  All fame is fleeting I suppose, because immediately following Amy’s congratulations, Paul turned the conversation to a much more important milestone around the Baier house.

  “Daddy?” Paul asked, “when do you think I will lose my other front tooth and how much do you think the tooth fairy will give me for that one?”

  Just two days ago, Paul—with Amy’s help—yanked out one of his two front teeth. He didn’t even cry—just yanked the thing right out. Despite the blood and the pain, Paul was determined to get his tooth out so he could get his hands on some of that tooth fairy cash he has been hearing so much about.

  After all Paul has been through in his short life, I think he must have thought this tooth-yanking business was kid stuff—and he was on the job.

  Lately there has been an ongoing family debate about just how much a front tooth was going for these days. I remember fifty cents under my pillow when I was his age, but Paul’s friends at school apparently have discovered some higher dollar tooth fairies, and they are definitely colluding on the numbers. So, after a recent meeting of the tooth fairy committee, it was decided that a front tooth under the pillow of a six-year-old would probably be rewarded with six one-dollar bills. Hearing that, Paul was highly motivated to yank out more teeth ASAP.

  Before long, Daniel, who at three really is the sweetest kid on the planet, said, “Daddy, I’m tired. Can you put me to bed tonight?” Paul quickly chimed in, “No Daniel! He’s putting me to bed tonight!”—Paul’s toothless enunciation a little less precise than we are used to.