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An
invitation to a neighborhood fair
Hands-on
experience at Christian writers event
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A miracle with heart |
Three-month-old Jacob Wagner undergoes heart surgery
within weeks of his birth |
By Schellene
Clendenin, Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail Schellene at
sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com |
Jacob Wagner is a happy,
smiling baby who enjoys eating and watching the antics of his big
sisters.
But the
3-month-old wasn’t always so. Were it not for help from doctors,
nurses, community members and the church, not to mention God, Julia
Wagner doesn’t think Jacob would have made it past his second week
of life.
She calls him her little miracle.
Jacob was born March 13 and at 9 pounds 14 ounces was a healthy
child who was gaining weight daily. When he was 10 days old Julia
left Jacob with her mother-in-law and two of his Jacob’s sisters,
Elizabeth, 6, and Emily, 3, to take her 5-year-old daughter Dorothy
on a mother-daughter outing.
When she left he looked normal and happy, she said. When she
returned, her mother-in-law, Pam Wagner, told Julia that Jacob was
not breathing properly.
“He was gasping for air,” she said. Deb Reber, a nurse in
pediatrician Dr. Ken Whittaker’s office, told Julia to bring the
baby right over. Sometime during the three-minute drive between her
home and Whittaker’s office, Jacob turned blue. As soon as she saw
his color, Reber grabbed Jacob and ran him across the street to the
Providence Newberg Hospital emergency room. Julia was close on her
heels.
Kathy Shockman, clinical coordinator in the hospital ER, said when
Reber arrived at her door with Jacob his condition was grave.
“He was blue, limp, seemed lifeless and was gasping for breath,”
she said. “And he was cold.”
Shockman said the ER staff began working to get Jacob breathing
with the aid of a breathing tube. They also inserted an intravenous
line.
But oxygen and an IV wouldn’t fix Jacob’s problem: he had a heart
defect.
The aorta and pulmonary arteries in Jacob’s heart were transposed.
In other words, the valve that pumps blood from the lungs and into
the rest of the body was returning blood to the lungs rather than
into the body.
During pregnancy, blood bypasses the lungs through a heart vessel
called the ductus arterious. Within two to 10 days after birth, the
duct closes and the lungs take over.
“When the duct closed (Jacob) couldn’t get any oxygen and he began
to die,” Julia said. Twenty minutes more and Jacob would not have
survived, doctors said.
Steve Meyers, bishop of a local Mormon church, arrived at
Providence before Paul Wagner, Jacob’s father. He waited with the
family and prayed. Coincidentally Meyers’ daughter was diagnosed
with the same condition when she was a baby, so Meyers was confident
Jacob would survive.
“We believe the Lord’s hand inspired the doctors to know what to do
and when to do it,” Meyers said.
But Jacob wasn’t improving, despite round-the-clock care from ER
physicians and nurses. A pediatric medical team from Legacy Emanuel
Hospital was called in to help. In critical condition, Jacob was
soon transported by Life Flight helicopter to the Portland hospital.
Jacob’s parents arrived in Portland to find the intensive care unit
(ICU) closed so cardiologist Marc LeGras could perform a balloon
atrial septostomy on Jacob’s heart. There was no time to prepare a
room for the surgery.
“That was pretty scary,” Paula Wagner said.
LeGras told Julia the procedure involved putting a hole in in the
wall of Jacob’s heart to allow the blood to mix and provide him with
oxygen.
After surgery on Easter Sunday, Jacob spent two weeks in the ICU,
then was sent home April 14 from the pediatrics ward. The family
carried along a brightly-colored blanket donated by the Four Corners
Society of the Mormon church in Salem.
“We were receiving support from people we didn’t even know,” Julia
Wagner said.
She added that people from every denomination prayed for Jacob.
Meyers said the congregation dedicated it’s weekly prayers and
fasting to Jacob’s recovery.
Church members helped care for Jacob’s sisters, provided a food
card so Paul Wagner could eat during the hospital stay and purchased
toiletries for Jacob’s parents to make them more comfortable while
at the hospital.
“(Jacob is) doing fabulous now, the surgery was successful,” Julia
Wagner said, her voice wavering. “I get a little emotional about all
this.” |
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From
July 2, 2005, Newberg Graphic
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