Alissa Faith Peck
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My daughter Alissa was born at 24 weeks on 2-25-04. She weighed 1 pound 8 ounces at birth and was 12 inches long. She was in the NICU for 110 days. Some her problems included PDA, which closed on its own, ROP (stage 3) and had two laser surgeries for that and also some cryotherpy. She has chronic lung disease from being on the vent for so long. The doctors tried several times to get her off the vent and she pulled it out a lot, so that caused tracheal stenosis. So, at 70 days old she got her trach. She did very well after that came straight off the vent.
We brought her home on June 12, 2004, on her due date. She did well for three weeks, but took a bad spell and my husband did CPR for 20 minutes with no response. He just got her back when the EMS got to our home, but her heart stopped 2 times in route to the hospital. She was in the PICU on the vent for a day, then in peds for a week. They said the problem was most likely a mucus plug, plus she had a infection.
A week after she got out of the hospital we took her to her ENT 4 hours away in Morgantown, West Virginia. He did a scope of her airway and said her throat was looking good. He wanted her to grow for about 3 more months (she was only at 5 pounds then) and then he would try to pull her trach in the OR. So, we will take her back on 10-26-04 to hopefully lose her trach.
She is now 7 months and doing well. She weighs about 11 pounds and has been doing well without 02 for about a month. She keeps her sats around 95%. She is on a pulseox at home and a heart monitor. She does all her feedings by mouth with no problems at all. We have home nursing for a 8 hours a day five days a week. Her nurses name is Mary and she really cares about her. Alissa also has a three year old sister named Makayla who is crazy about her. She is are miracle baby.
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Update, August 2005: First of all, Alissa still has her trach. We are not having any luck with docs in this state, so we took her to the best Dr Robin Cotton At Cincinnati. The plans right now are for her to grow a little more and go back in 3 months for a scope, if all looks good then schedule the LTP. So I am hoping we will go in to 2006 trach free. We will see. As far as everything else Alissa is doing pretty good. While in cinci we learned her BPD is almost gone. Dr Wood was surprised since she was a 24-weeker. Alissa also wears glasses now, her eye sight is pretty bad she has cataracts. They will be removed someday. Other then that Alissa is doing great walking around furniture she is in to everything. She weighs 18 pounds and is 18 months old. Alissa is also crying loud she is very vocal. They said she has some opening around voice box. I was afraid when we were in cinci they would put a bigger trach. She had a 3.5 ped Shiley now she has a neo 3.5. The other was too big and could have done a lot of damage. I will update again after are next trip to see Dr. Cotton. Thanks everyone for taking time to read Alissa's page.
Mandi Peck, email mandirenee22@yahoo.com
