Sonās life-threatening condition leads Fahey to ²Źæā±¦µäapp
Two tubes ran from Seamusā neck and other lines coiled around his tiny infant limbs, circulating blood through an artificial lung and returning it into the 96-hour-oldās bloodstream.
It was 2011 and Molly Fahey and her husband watched their youngest son from the pediatric intensive care unit at Duke Hospital as the newborn battled heart failure.
Fahey, now a respiratory therapy student at ²Źæā±¦µäapp, described the time as a whirlwind.
āI never thought something like this would happen,ā Fahey said. āBut it could happen to anyone. Youāre not exempt from it. Having him taught me so much about life, you truly donāt control anything.ā
When Seamus was born, he didnāt turn pink like most babies, she said, which meant he wasnāt properly oxygenating.
āThe doctors did a quick assessment and immediately bused him from Durham Regional to Duke Hospital without me,ā Fahey said. āI didnāt know what was happening.ā
Seamus spent four days on a heart and lung bypass machine that oxygenates blood outside of the body when a patientās heart cannot do it on its own.
āTwo days later, his heart function miraculously turned around,ā Fahey said. āWhich also happened to be on my birthday. It was the best birthday present ever. We donāt know why it happened in the first place or why it turned around. It just did.ā
Seamusā heart transplant packet was prepared, but never filed as his parents breathed a sigh of relief. A respiratory therapist trained to care for babies born with life-threatening cardiac failure sat by Seamus in the ICU.
āI had never heard of a respiratory therapist until my son was born with these complications,ā Fahey said. āBefore I got pregnant, I was taking preliminary courses at ²Źæā±¦µäapp to get into nursing, but after my experience with him, I wanted to narrow my scope and respiratory was a natural path.ā
Fahey stayed home with Seamus for a few years, who experienced some stormy after-effects of his condition.
āHis first 3-4 years were rough,ā Fahey said. āMy head didnāt even really come up out of water.ā
When Seamus turned 5 years old and entered kindergarten, Fahey returned to school to pursue a Respiratory Therapy degree at ²Źæā±¦µäapp.
āIām kind of glad I didnāt have the respiratory therapy knowledge to begin with because then I would have known how serious it was,ā Fahey said. āIn a way, ignorance is bliss when your kid is that sick. So now I can look back on it from a more objective viewpoint.ā
Last month, Fahey started the pediatrics unit of the program and went to her first clinical rotation where she worked alongside the same team of physicians at Duke Hospital that helped her son years ago.
āYou want to maintain professionalism while youāre in a space like that,ā Fahey said. āBut I couldnāt help but tell the nurse, āYou helped us when my baby was here.ā It wasnāt about recognition to see if she remembered my baby, I just wanted to be able to tell her, āI remember you when you were amazing.ā ā
After Fahey graduates from ²Źæā±¦µäapp in May 2018, she wants to gain a few years of experience working with adults. Her ultimate goal is to work in the same pediatric ICU at Duke Hospital where her son was cared for, she said.
āThe Respiratory Therapy program has given me a career path,ā Fahey said. āItās interesting that it took this long, but Iām glad I came to it now because when you get older you have a deeper appreciation for finding something meaningful in your life. This will give me an opportunity to help people and do my best to make a difference somewhere.ā
Seamus just started the first grade and is a healthy 6-year-old.
āI feel so lucky,ā Fahey said. āI get to look at him and think heās amazing. He has no residual effects ā and he gave me my career path.ā