Jen and Mike Davis celebrated the birth of their second
child, Cutler, on July 8 of this year. Cutler had lots of brown hair, got to
bond with his parents that first day, meet his big sister Riley, and seemed
perfect and healthy. But the next morning brought a dramatic and terrifying
change.
Cutler’s day nurse had worked previously in a cardiology
clinic. “She said she thought she heard a murmur,” Jen said. “She took Cutler
off to be tested, and then she came back without him.” The news wasn’t good.
Cutler was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, moved to the neonatal
intensive care unit and given medication to keep his heart beating.
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| Cutler Davis after diagnosis |
Thus began a journey that would take Jen and Mike through worry
and fear, the necessity of learning all kinds of medical terms, and what faith
means when faced with the possibility of losing a child.
For Cutler, the prayers began immediately following the news
that his life was in danger. At barely 24 hours old, he was taken by ambulance
to Children’s Mercy Hospital. Since this turn of events was completely
unexpected, Jen had yet to be discharged after giving birth, so had to remain
behind for a short while.
When you are told that your baby has something wrong, something
life-threatening, emotions can wash over you in waves. Shock, fear, and a
desperate attempt to make everything right. For Jen and Mike, that attempt came
in having Jen’s mom contact Pastor Mike and ask him to baptize Cutler.
Interestingly, Pastor Mike and Cutler share the same birthday. Pastor Mike had
just finished a game of golf when he got the call, so he went home, cleaned up
and headed to the hospital.
Pastor Mike said the family gathered in the hallway for
prayer, then went to Cutler’s crib for the baptism. “The cool thing about
Cutler’s baptism,” Pastor Mike said, “is that the hospital brought me a bottle
of sterile water to use.” That is an illustration of how, as he explained, God
uses everyday stuff in ways that connect us to him. “It’s tangible evidence of
God’s presence in things we can’t understand,” he said. “In this situation,
baptism is where we see the promise that God will never forsake us.”
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| Cutler's baptism |
For a terrified parent, such a baptism is also an
illustration of how our faith moves us to cling to God, completely helpless,
yet trusting that he is there for us when we need him the most. Cutler was 36
hours old at the time of his baptism. That was a Wednesday.
Then something good happened. “On Friday, we were told that
Cutler’s heart problems went from being severe to mild in function,” Jen said.
Specifically, that means both his left and right ventricles improved in
function, and the aorta wasn’t as small as the doctors had thought. Jen noted
in her blog that the doctors were surprised at Cutler’s improvement in less
than 24 hours.
The doctors laid out a plan, with Cutler’s first surgery
scheduled sometime within the next couple of weeks. But that plan changed
pretty quickly, and all of a sudden, Cutler was scheduled for surgery on July
15, one week after his birth. Up to this time, Jen and Mike hadn’t held their
baby since the day of his birth. They could touch him briefly, and had gotten
to have him lie on a pillow on their lap, but skin-to-skin contact was
restricted. The surgery went well, and basically gave Cutler time to grow a
little bit more before he faces possible open heart surgery in the future. And
finally, Jen and Mike were able to hold Cutler for the first time in nine days.
Cutler remained in the pediatric intensive care unit following
his surgery. His health continued to improve, though in fits and starts and
with occasional setbacks. He had trouble taking a bottle, holding food down, so
the feeding tube remained in place. His breathing was erratic. On July 23, he
was moved to the cardiology floor, which was, as Jen described, a little more
‘home-like.’ Then his sodium levels dropped, though he was finally up to taking
about an ounce a day of food by bottle. He finally began to gain a little bit
of weight, and was taken off most of his medications.
As Cutler continued to improve, Jen and Mike dared to dream
he would be coming home soon. But then another problem occurred, this one with
the stent that was placed in Cutler during his first surgery, to keep his patent ductus
arteriosus (PDA) open. The PDA is a normal fetal blood vessel that closes soon after birth. With Cutler,
that didn’t happen, therefore the stent. But now, as the PDA was starting to
close, it was restricting the stent. Cutler, usually good-natured in spite of
everything, became fussy, agitated and unable to eat. By now, the stent was
determined to be too short, and the PDA tissue was causing some blood flow
blockage. So in a second surgery, the doctors were able to extend the stent and
allow the blood to flow back through the heart valve.
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| The Davis family |
Then came August 14. Cutler had been in the hospital for 37
days. He had been poked and prodded, had blood transfusions and shots, been
surrounded by medical equipment and personnel. His parents had lived in a
surreal world throughout this time. Mike, who is in restaurant management, said
that his employees weren’t sure what to do or say around him. But August 14, a
whole new experience began for all of them, because this was the day that
Cutler finally came home, that Jen slept in her own bed, that she and Mike
could be parents in the normalcy of their own house.
Cutler’s health still isn’t certain. He likely faces open
heart surgery, but a December 12 visit will help determine more about that.
What is certain, though, is that Cutler is a miracle baby. From the nurse who
had the experience to notice his heart murmur, to the hundreds of people who
joined voices in prayer, from the baptism which seemingly brought unexplained
improved heart function, to the surprising improvements in the way his
ventricles functioned.
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| Cutler - happy at home |
As Jen and Mike recently shared this story, the experiences
they’ve been through were readily apparent in voices choked with emotion, in the
tears that kept welling up as they recalled events. “You sit back and
prioritize,” Jen said. “My prayer was that God would be there for him, just
watch over him.”
Jen has written about Cutler’s journey in a blog on the
CaringBridge site. In one posting, she noted that she had always called Cutler
her little Superman. She wrote, “I
will leave you with a quote my cousin found for him today... "So many of
our dreams seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon
the will; they soon become inevitable." - Christopher Reeve
If you would like to read more about Cutler’s story, visit
this link:
Cutler had open heart surgery on Jan. 8, and returned home a week later, happy and most of all, healthy!
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