I was born at 9lbs and 8oz. The doctors knew that my mom had a small, titled uterous but didn’t realize that I was so large. They had estimated my weight to be roughly 8lbs. Due to this combination of factors, my mom was later told that she should have had a c-section but she didn’t. My head was compressed during delivery which caused a bleed in my brain that lead to me having my first seizure a seizure a few hours after birth. I continued to struggle with seizures for the first couple of years of my life. I was medicated for seizures but due to my quickly growing size during infancy and early toddlerhood it was difficult for doctors to ensure that I was getting enough medication for my size without over medicating me. At times, the dosage would be off due to growth spurts so I would go through phases of having seizures again for a while until the dosage got worked back out. Thankfully this only lasted for a couple of years until the blood clot was naturally broken down and I’ve been fine ever since.
During those days, I was seen at multiple hospitals, and by multiple doctors. Of course, I am not able to remember any of it but I have heard stories about the various places we were seen – some great and some really ugly. The worst being during one hospital stay while I was a newborn. My mom walked in on the nurse holding me and my arm had fallen down beneath the nurses arm, so it was twisted backwards, by the nurses side and was looking a bit discolored. Of course, my mom mentioned to the nurse that my arm was losing circulation and instead of simply fixing my arm she responded that she has held hundreds of babies and knows what she is doing. This didn’t go over very well at all. Later on, my mom had left the room and when she came back the nurse was wearing a hard hat. At the time, the hospital was having some construction done but my mom still thought it was odd that the nurse was wearing a hard hat. When the nurse went to lay me down, the hardhat came off of her own head smashing into mine. Considering that my health problems were a result of a head/brain injury my parents were really angry and filed a complain against her. A couple months later, they discovered that the nurse had been fired as she was caught stealing medicine from a medicine cabinet at the hospital.
Nobody wants their injured child to end up in the hands of a nurse or doctor who is immature, irresponsible or perhaps even high on prescription medication. While we don’t know if she was abusing the drugs when she was working with me in particular, and I didn’t seem to suffer any real damage from the way she treated me, it’s horrible to imagine how much harm she could have done to others. If I have a child who is sick, I will definitely be using the various websites that allow individuals to “grade” hospitals, doctors and nurses. While it’s not a completely fail proof system, I feel more assured trusting a health care system if I know that others have had great experiences with them. I also like the freedom to choose to avoid certain doctors or hospitals if I look online and see that others have had a lot of negative experiences. I would certainly recommend that anyone who is looking to select a doctor or hospital to visit takes online reviews or grades into consideration while making their decision.
Many parents will find comfort in visiting a doctor or hospital that specializes in their child’s disease or condition. Hospital for Special Surgery is a world leader for rheumatology, rehabilitation and orthopedics and is located in New York City. The HSS recently opened the CA Technologies Rehabilitation Center that takes patients ages birth to 21 and work with people both inpatient and outpatient. Their staff includes physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists. You can learn more by checking out this video:
Connect: You can connect with Hospital for Special Surgery on Facebook.
Disclaimer – I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Hospital for Special Surgery. A small donation to a charity of my choice was made in my name as a thank you for participating. You should consult with your physician or other health care provider before beginning any rehabilitation/therapy, sports training, or exercise program.
Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.
Thanks for posting this… I never knew about these types of complications with births.