On December 8, 2017, my wife Ashley delivered our twins, Reynolds, and Campbell. She gets all the credit. I didn’t do any of the heavy lifting. We always knew that Baby A was larger than Baby B, but we didn’t know why. And we had no idea that there were going to be complications at birth. The boys were born at 36 weeks via C-sections, immediately whisked away and taken to the NICU. Reynolds was eventually transferred to another NICU, while Campbell just needed a little more time to grow. So, Reynolds and I left Ashley and Campbell to go to a children’s hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, where we ultimately spent 103 days in that NICU. He had airway issues. He had cardiac issues. He had GI issues. And throughout that entire time in the NICU, doctors knew that there was some underlying reason causing these issues, but no […]

Emily Baez remembers being in the delivery room when she noticed that something was different about her newborn daughter’s ear. “You count toes, you count fingers, but you don’t think for a second to check any other body part… especially an ear,” she says.   Microtia is a rare birth defect in which the external ear is not completely developed. It affects about one in every 5,000-7,000 babies born annually. “When she was born, I didn’t know anything about it, I had never heard of microtia, so I started with social media first,” she says. This is when Emily became involved in The Ear Community online, searching hashtags and connecting with other affected families. “It actually helped make my grieving process a lot better.” After struggling to identify a health care provider that accepted their insurance, Emily found Nemours Children’s and instantly knew she was in the right place to […]

A’miyah was referred to the Cochlear Implant Program at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida, where she was evaluated, and was determined to be a candidate for cochlear implantation.

To read this in Spanish, click here! One day in May of 2022, Sebastian came home sad after school, causing me to worry about his unusual behavior as he is a very happy child. I asked Sebastian if something was wrong and if he was being bullied at school. He assured me he was just unusually exhausted. The following day, Sebastian was in the same down mood, but had a fever this time. I took Sebastian quickly to our local doctor, where he was diagnosed with a stomach bug and prescribed antibiotics. He eventually felt better, but not much time passed before the same symptoms returned. We went to another doctor who gave him the same diagnosis and prescribed more antibiotics. I wondered how it could be a stomach bug if he had no GI symptoms, but I followed the doctor’s advice. Rapid breathing was later added to Sebastian’s symptoms, […]

En mayo de 2022, Sebastián llego triste de la escuela. Estaba yo preocupada por él. Pensé que tal vez alguien era un bully, pero me aseguró que estaba inusualmente cansado. Al día siguiente era lo mismo, y tenía fiebre, así que lo llevé al médico que le diagnosticó una infección de estómago y le recetó antibióticos. Mejoró, pero no pasó mucho tiempo antes de que regresaran los mismos síntomas. Fuimos a otro médico que dijo que era lo mismo y nos recetó aún más antibióticos. Me pregunté cómo podría ser una infección del estómago si no tenía síntomas gastrointestinales, pero seguí lo que dijo el médico. Pero luego se agregó la respiración rápida a sus síntomas y supe que algo más estaba pasando, así que esta vez lo llevé al hospital. La respiración era tan rápida que me asustó. Pensaron que era bronquiolitis y prescribieron un tratamiento con nebulizador. Cuando […]

Nine months ago, Annie and Ben Grayshan got the news no parents ever want to hear, “Your child has cancer.” Their son Ethan was 7 years old when recurring vomiting led to a visit with his pediatrician in April 2022. His doctor suspected a stomach bug. The vomiting persisted and Ethan was sent for allergy testing and then to a GI specialist. After starting antibiotics for a potential parasite, Ethan began to experience fatigue and headaches, common side effects of the antibiotics. But after a few days with no improvement, his parents took him to an ER where a CT scan showed a mass on Ethan’s brain. The Grayshans were then airlifted to the ER at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville. Within 48 hours he had undergone two brain surgeries. One to relieve the hydrocephalus, which had been causing his symptoms, and another to remove the tumor. A diagnosis of […]