Larry's story   — NORA VIDAL, VA, USA

On Dec. 27-05 at 7:53am I gave birth to a cute little 5lb, 3oz baby boy named Larry, and everything was going ok. When I noticed that his breathing was not right, I told the nurse and she told me that he was a newborn and that it was normal for babies to breathe like that. Then I noticed some mucus coming from his nose and again she said that was normal, so I didn’t pay no mind. Well, the next day we were getting ready to go home and they were doing the car seat test when they came in and told me that he was not keeping his oxygen level up and that they needed to put him on some oxygen, so he wasn’t able to go home. I went home and I would call every day every 30 minutes of the day, praying and hoping they would tell me to go and pick him up, but they wouldn’t. Instead, they would tell me he was getting worse, so I would rush over there as soon as I could. The days passed by, and everyday it was like forever, when on Jan. 06-05 we got the call that we could go and pick up our little angel. He came home and he was here with us when he got a real bad cough, so we took him to the ER. They told us he had a little common cold and him being so small they could not give him no meds. So they sent us home and that was on the 16th. Well, the days went by and his cough went away but his breathing was still kinda hard. So on the 25th we took him back to the hosp. and they did an RSV test and it came back positive. Larry was so small the ER Dr. sent him to Childrens Hospital by ambulance, and I got to ride with him. We got there and he started wheezing real bad so they admitted him. Every day the nurse would come in and check his vitals and say “poor guy, he’s working real hard at breathing”, and he would make some grunting noise and cry. And I would cry along with him cause I would feel his pain and I couldn’t do nothing to soothe it but hold him and talk to him. After being on the regular floor for 3 days and after 4 times the attemping to do a spinal tap with no fluid coming out, they sent him to the NICU. My heart was torn up — at that moment I just wanted to switch places with my baby. It was just too heartbreaking to see him go thru all that pain, and being only 3 wks old. Things kept getting worse and he got put on a ventilator to help him breathe, then he needed a blood transfusion because his blood work came back that he had to much carbon monixide in his blood, then his blood cells that fight off the germs had gone from 3000 to 300 and that was not good at all. The next day they had to put him on a stronger ventilator cause he was not responding to the other one, then I noticed his body was getting swollen and his blood pressure was dropping too low and they kept giving him some medication to keep his heart rate going. On the afternoon of Jan. 30 the Dr gave me the ugliest news a mother could hear: my son wasn’t going to make it thru the night. I did not know what to think, how to feel, it was like I was hit by a train. I went crazy, me and my boyfriend, so the nurse put him in our arms at around 7:40 and there he was, hooked up to all the machines in the world. And about 5 min later our little angel slipped away from us and went to join our Father in heaven, and that was the day half of me went away. Larry died of GBS. I was never checked for it when I was pregnant, I wish I was so that I knew what to prepare myself for. And now we are left with only the good and happy and blessed memories we shared with our precious little angel Larry.