Mikkel was born on May 30th.
2001 and got the diagnosis "Erbs Duchenne palsy". Big brother Marcus (Born
1999) also came to this world in a very brutal manner, but fortunately he is
fine.
Dad Peter: 29 years old. Profession: Agriculture Economist.
Works with sales and marketing of Harvesters. Will soon be an independent
farmer.
Mom Lone: 29 years old. Profession: Social & health helper. Works evening
shifts helping disabled people to bed in Assentoft and neighbourhoods.
02.09.01
Unfortunately things are not as good as we want them to be.
We are seeing Dr. Keld Nielsen at Randers central Hospital but has been
referred to A Hospital in Aarhus due to no significant progress. The specialists
in Aarhus will examine Mikkel and see if they find him suitable for surgery and
refer him to a Hospital in Aalborg.
Mikkel is able to move the fingers and wrist but not much above neutral. There
are no function in the upper extremities.
He is now 3 month old and we have reached a point where we find there is no more
progress. Sometimes he sleeps with a splint to keep the wrist in neutral and we
see a therapist to keep a full range of motion.
Despite his injury Mikkel is a happy and active boy and we are so proud of him.
It's just a little frustrating to know he was perfect before birth.
03.09.01 Maybe
I should start the story from the beginning:
In 1999 we got our 1st. born boy named Marcus. Lone was 18 days over
due and had Marcus, 4350 kg (9lb 5 ounces), with some difficulties after
10 hours of labor. He had trouble breathing and was moved to Neonatal. The
Doctors took a blood test and confirmed an infection. He was put on
antibiotics for 7 days. The breathing problems was more severe on side. But he
quickly recovered and was signed out after 10 days. Later a nurse discovered a
broken collar bone which likely was the cause of the problems. Now we wonder how
they could have overlooked this when they took an x-ray for his lungs.......but
this is what happens!
Today Marcus is a big boy, 2 1/2 years old, and has absolutely no signs of his
dramatically birth.
A little more that 2
years later our 2nd. dream child, a boy, came to
this world. We wanted so bad to have our child and get home in a hurry, but
unfortunately it didn't go like planned....
This time Lone went 19 days over due and had to be induced. 2 days prior she was
scanned and the nurse estimated the child to be aprox. 4300 kg (9 pounds). That
wasn't too alarming and there was enough water for the child.
The contractions started late the afternoon the day before and around
midnight we went to the hospital. Mikkel was born 3.15 AM. He was 5258 kg.
(11.4 lb) and was 62 cm long.
Everything went perfect until his head came out.....then nothing! To begin with
the nurse was calm but after another few contractions without anything
happening she got nervous and all of a sudden the room was filling with people....!
Mikkel was stuck for about 3-4 minutes and didn't come out before they performed
a reversed "Loewset maneuver" (no English name). They had tried a McRoberts
before that with no result. (Reversed Loewset means they turn the baby 180
degrees since the shoulder nearest moms tailbone often is a little further out
than the shoulder near the pubic bone).
But we are convinced the damage was done before that, since they pulled very
hard on the baby's head before the maneuver. Lone was almost pulled down from
the bed. I (dad) find that I have a very relaxed relationship toward giving
birth, since my wife and I both have been working with farming and know things
can be rough and violent. But this was brutal! I was convinced they were about
to pull his head off. But Mikkel was born and was very weak from this ordeal.
Immediately we saw something was wrong with his arm since it was dangling
paralyzed.
We were hoping it was just a pull on the nerves, but was quick informed it could
be a fracture of the nerves (avulsion or rupture).
Mikkel also had an infection and had to be given antibiotics. He also had to
stay 10 days.
We were given a folder "Information to parents about your child's
rehabilitations from Duchenne Erbs paralyzes". The Therapist gave us some
exercises to work on his arm and they made him a splint to wear at night to keep
his wrist in neutral.
After this I found we needed additional information and we were lucky to find
your website that gave us a lot of answers to all the questions flying around in
our heads. Especially the stories about the other kids was very good.
Today we are more clarified
about our situation but wishing for improvements every day. We are glad it
didn't go worse than this. We have 2 lovely and happy boys and even if Mikkels
arm will never be a 100 % it's not the end of the world in 2001 with all its
techniques. And who knows how it looks in 10 years from now? We are confident
with the future!