For Cassie and her son, Kaelin, everything was fine until it wasn’t.
Cassie’s smooth, uncomplicated pregnancy — she didn’t even have morning sickness — with Kaelin was thrown for a loop when, at 31 weeks along, her OB diagnosed her with pre-eclampsia. Two days later, with her symptoms worsening, an ambulance came for Cassie at her home in Alvinston.
After a week in the antenatal unit at London Health Sciences Centre, Cassie was induced into labour. Twenty-two hours later, she had only dilated five centimetres and Kaelin’s heart rate was dropping, so her care team determined she’d need a C-section — and when her epidural failed, she needed general anesthesia.
“And he was born and I woke up nine hours later. I didn’t know anything,” Cassie says. She and her new son were just starting a rollercoaster of health challenges.
On December 11, Kaelin was born. Sadly, his entry to the world was just as troubling as Cassie’s experience, born with a large brain bleed, a heart murmur, an irregular heartbeat and hypospadias, a condition in which the urethra doesn’t develop correctly.
“He kept getting sicker,” Cassie says. “They thought I was maybe on pain medication or something, and I wasn’t. So, they tested further, and he had meningitis.”
Kaelin’s medical team administered antibiotics in hopes he’d be able to go home for Christmas. Unfortunately, Kaelin’s fever spiked on December 24, which meant a Christmas in the NICU.
Cassie has nothing but great things to say about the care they received in the NICU. The family built up relationships with other NICU families, in particular a family with twins in the same pod who they remained friends with. “Their mom and dad, I’m still close with them today. We still get the kids together, all three of them, because they’re within a week apart.”
Specialized equipment like a bedside ultrasound machine helped keep little Kaelin safe while performing important scans. “They brought in the ultrasounds and all that right into his room so he didn’t have to leave because he was so sick at the time. Everything was accessible,” Cassie says.
The family finally got to go home on New Year’s Day — and then, three months later, Cassie’s health took a turn. “I ended up having a pulmonary embolism that went through my heart into my other lung and I had a heart attack,” she says.
A month later, when he was four months old and with his brain bleed gradually healing on its own, Kaelin underwent a procedure to correct his heart murmur. Four more surgeries to correct his hypospadias followed, one every six months after his birth.
As if that wasn’t enough, Kaelin also started getting repeat ear infections around his first birthday — 14 ear infections in one year! His ear drum burst twice and he had difficulty speaking because he couldn’t hear what his parents were saying.
Doctors treated his ear infections by placing tubes in each ear. “Within two months after he got tubes, he started talking really, really well,” Cassie says. “He’s very talkative now.”
It’s been a long journey for Kaelin. Within his first three years, Cassie says he spent a total of 50 days overnight at Children’s Hospital, and 80 visits total. “That’s a lot when he’s three,” she says.
“When I first got here it was definitely terrifying because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh this place is huge.’ There’s so many doctors, I knew nobody. I didn’t know my OB at the time, I had never met her before, and she actually went on maternity leave like two days before I gave birth. So, I had another OB. It was great… It’s our home away from home at this point.”
Throughout it all, Kaelin has persevered. “He’s like super kid,” Cassie says. “I feel like if I ever have another child, I’m going to be screwed because he’s been so good. It’s just bound to happen that my next one will be a little terror.”
After all that time in the hospital, Kaelin loves going outdoors now. “He’s not like a sit around kid,” Cassie says. “He loves to be the centre of attention. His favourite thing to do lately is hockey…He loves animals. He loves anything to do with sports and being outside.”
The rollercoaster has smoothed out for Cassie and Kaelin, and they’re able to move forward in their lives thanks to the kind, expert care they received at Children’s Hospital.
You can help more families like Kaelin’s this holiday season. When you make a gift to Children’s Health Foundation, you’ll be making even more of an impact than you know. Thanks to the Charabin Family Match of up to $50,000, a gift of $50 becomes $100, and a gift of $100 becomes $200. Think about how many lives would be changed as a result. Hope lives at Children’s because of you.
