Stories of Getting Better at The Children's Hospital

"Finally, he was our normal, healthy baby and we could hold him."
by Tim, father of 10-month-old Benjamin

Benjamin became very sick
shortly after being born.
Here, at 10 months, he is
completely healthy.

When your wife goes in for a scheduled Caesarean section and delivers a healthy 8-pound baby boy, you think the hard part is over. But, for Benjamin, the hard part was just beginning. For the first hour of his life [at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins] he was fine, everything was fine. Then he started coughing up blood. All of the sudden there’s alarm. What’s wrong? What’s going on? I remember panicking and feeling like this wasn’t supposed to happen.

The doctor told me Benjamin had developed a condition where a newborn’s circulatory system doesn’t transfer from its fetal circulation. In other words, his lungs weren’t taking in air. And he was really, really sick. Then, they told me help was on the way. Dr. John Kinsella from The Children’s Hospital was driving up to Fort Collins on his day off.

At the time, Dr. Kinsella was just another doctor. But now, I see him as an angel that saved our little boy. It was Dr. Kinsella who made it possible for Benjamin to be stable enough to fly to The Children’s Hospital. I didn’t know at the time that this guy was the leading researcher in exactly Benjamin’s condition, but I knew he was going to do whatever it took to save Benjamin —and that was all I cared about.

Once Benjamin got to The Children’s Hospital, things started to improve. I remember sitting next to him saying he was my strongest little boy, my biggest fighter. And he was—he didn’t have to go onto the ECMO [an oxygenation machine that only The Children’s Hospital has in Colorado] because he began stabilizing on his own.

By the fourth day we were there, Dr. Kinsella looked at us and said, "This is the first time I feel comfortable saying he’s going to pull through." As a parent, that’s what you’re waiting to hear. Finally, it was as though someone took a mountain off my shoulders.

Read the complete story about Benjamin in Children's Magazine, Spring 2006 issue: When Seconds Count