This morning I watched proudly as my 19-year-old daughter
signed the credit card receipt for her haircut. It might sound strange to hear
that paying for her own beauty regimen is noteworthy, but you see, she wasn’t
even supposed to live this long.
My husband and I were your
typical, idealistic, young modern Orthodox couple and couldn’t wait to start a
family. On a Friday night in March, our dreams to start a family came true. Our
beautiful daughter Simi was born at 11:30 p.m., and we were in heaven.
Unfortunately, real life intruded
in the middle of the night when the medical team said, “Your baby isn’t
breathing right, could you sign this so we can give her a spinal tap?” We
hesitantly replied “Um, OK, sure.” They came back telling us, “Your baby has
pneumonia.” After 14 days in the hospital treating what we thought was a fluke,
we took our baby home and thought now the fairy tale would begin.
At Simi’s 2-month checkup, after
weeks of sleepless nights filled with her cries, days filled with frustrations
over feedings, and multiple calls and trips to the doctor’s office, the
pediatrician said, “We’re going to do a test for a Jewish genetic disease
called Familial Dysautonomia (FD). It’s so rare, we don’t think she has it, but
we want to do a conclusive test.”
A savvy radiologist had looked
twice at the chest X-rays showing pneumonia in the tiny lungs of our
2-month-old baby and noticed our Asheknazic Jewish last name. He suggested Simi
be tested for this rare disease, “just to rule it out.” By the time all three
doctors from our practice walked into the room the next day, we knew what they
would say. They read statistics to us, including one that said 50% of patients
with FD don’t live past the age of 18.
At that moment, as the doctors
read us the manifestations of the disease such as diminished pain sensation,
lack of taste buds, uneven gait and diminished balance, debilitating scoliosis,
lack of overflow tears, and the body’s inability to regulate its own
temperature or blood pressure (just to name a few), I watched our hopes and
dreams for this child fly out the window...
Luckily for us, the only doctor
devoted to this disease in the United States worked a mere 100 blocks away from
our home. At the Medical Center, Simi’s nurse sat with us and explained what
would happen next. “She’s going to have surgery to place a feeding tube in her
stomach,” she began. “Oh no, we’re not going to do that one,” I said. She just
laughed.
Well, we placed our daughter’s
life in this woman’s hands and never looked back. Simi is alive and thriving
today because of that hole in her stomach and the years of her life Dr. Axelrod
devoted to this disease.
Two
weeks passed and we took our daughter home to begin a life filled with therapies
and doctor’s appointments. Within a span of 12 years, she has endured 14
surgeries, including five orthopedic surgeries to correct her scoliosis. Back
braces, leg braces, and even braces on her teeth (OK, those weren’t so bad),
drug trials, eye drops every few hours, special education classes, fights with
insurance companies, fights with school districts, legal battles, and endless
therapies became a normal part of our lives...
Why
and how did this happen to us? We were responsible and did everything right
during the pregnancy. Heck, we did everything right even before! Both of us
were tested for Tay-Sachs, just to be totally sure. FD took us completely by
surprise. When Simi was born there was no test available for FD, as researchers
were still working on finding the gene that causes it...
When
Simi was 2.5, my husband and I decided to try for another child. At that time,
the gene for FD had still not been located. As parents of a child with FD, we
were able to have prenatal testing through chorionic villus sampling early in
the pregnancy, comparing the baby’s DNA with Simi’s to ensure that it did not
have FD. When Simi was 3.5 years old, we gave birth to her healthy baby
brother, Zack.
Almost
nine years later we repeated the process and had another healthy son..
19
years later, there are constant medical breakthroughs, and though we believe
that Simi’s life is better than we originally expected, it is far from perfect.
Every single day brings challenges, and Simi continues to face them with
strength and confidence. But I really wish she didn’t have to.
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