Scenes from a Small Town

There are both good and bad aspects of being from a small town.  I have often relayed stories regarding growing up in my hometown to others to make them understand what it was/is really like being from a place where maybe not everyone knows everyone, but everyone knows someone who knows everyone else.

The year was 1990, I was seventeen and some friends and I were riding around town on a Friday or Saturday night.  The loop started at the Sonic- where you drove through the "U" of stalls, waved at your friends and then back onto the main road down to the last light in town where you would turn left.  There was a steady stream of cars in both directions down that small road which headed to the park where we would all hang out, talk, see and be seen.  Upon arriving at the park, you could either pull over, get out and socialize, or wave at others and continue on your way through the loop that lead back into town and through the Sonic again.  We did this over and over until it was time to go home.  So, one night, we got the bright idea to fill some water balloons and throw them at our friends in the park, at red lights and in the Sonic stalls.  It wasn't long before we were pulled over by the police and all forced to pile out of the car. (There was no seatbelt law or maximum occupant law for the back seat and we were all crammed in).  The cop, admonished us, ran all of our licenses and then told us to go home.  We did and when I walked in the door, my momma was waiting for me.  Someone she knew had heard the ordeal on the police scanner, heard my name as my license was checked and called her in the ten minutes it took for me to get home.  Small town living at it's worst.

That same year, I went with our drama department to UIL One Act Play competition held at a school about 30-40 minutes away from ours.  I met a boy there and we chatted throughout the day and I gave him my number.  We then proceeded to talk on the phone quite a bit and he finally asked me out. He had never been to my town before  so I gave him directions, informing him that there were two highways that came into town from the direction he was traveling.  I told him he would either come into town by a grocery story and elementary school or by the McDonalds and if he would pull over and call me on the pay phone when he got there and tell me where he was, I would then give him directions to my house from that point.  Later that evening, he showed up at my house without having called from the pay phone.  I was puzzled.  He had come into town via the road by McDonald's and pulled over to call me but decided he needed to use the restroom and wanted to buy a Coke.  While at the counter, ordering his drink, one of the teenagers inquired as to the fact that he was obviously not from our town.  He told her he was dating someone local and she asked my name.  When he told her, she knew me and gave him directions to my house.

Fast forward a few years and I was in college and dating a Navy guy stationed in Washington state.  For whatever reason, he decided to send me flowers and went to his FTD florist on base.  This was in the days before internet ordering, so the florist used their FTD network and called my local florist and put him on the phone with them.  As he was telling the woman what to write on the card, she interrupted to ask for my name and address.  When he gave her my name, she said, "Oh my goodness!!  Is this (insert his name here)!!???"  I need to tell you that I did not know this woman personally, but knew of her through her daughter who was a few years behind me in school.  I have no idea how she knew I was dating this guy or what his name was.

My last blog post was about Zoe's birth and her health scare shortly after her birth.  At this point, we had been living far away from home for nine years.  While Zoe was still at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and we still had no idea what was wrong with her, my dad and stepmom happened to be in Super WalMart right outside my hometown.  My stepmom ran into a girl with a baby and was playing with and smiling at the baby and started chatting with the girl.  She told the girl that they had a new grand baby that was just a few days old, but was in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at the moment because she was having seizures.  She said she saw the recognition in the girl's eyes and she exclaimed, "Are you Zoe's grandparents!!!??"  When my stepmom affirmed that they were, the girl said, "We have been praying for her at our church!"  It was so touching and comforting for me to hear that, 1500 miles away, my daughter was being prayed for by strangers that only knew that her parents were "a friend of a friend" or "so-and-so's daughter/son/grandchild/wife/husband".  This is a small town at its best.

Last I want to share with you the somewhat comical story that brought this all up in the first place.  You see, we are moving overseas this summer and had to apply for government passports last week.  The passport agent had to send off my marriage certificate with the application and I only had one copy.  I also need to renew my tourist passport and document my married name since it was initially issued under my maiden name.  I don't have time to wait for the government passport to come back, so I needed another copy of my marriage license.  A Facebook plea lead me to the Texas State Vital Statistics website where I discovered that a marriage license can only be obtained through the County Clerk in the county where I was married. I then searched for the county website and learned that a small county like that doesn't do the online thing.  They had a website, but no instructions for obtaining a marriage certificate or links to follow.  I put out another Facebook plea and within minutes, had three people working on it for me. That was Monday evening.  By Tuesday afternoon, my marriage certificate had been obtained and was in the mail headed to me. Turns out, my mother called the courthouse that morning and the girl that answered the phone went to high school with her.

I know these kinds of stories are not unique to my hometown.  There are times when I relish being in an area where everyone doesn't know me or my business and I can live in obscurity.  But, then I get nostalgic for the smell of pine, the thundering echo rolling through town of the train cars hooking up at the yard, the smell of a thunderstorm rolling in and the call of the bobwhite from a sandbar by the creek on a lazy hot summer day.  But most importantly- when I walk into the grocery store, sigh and say, "Ahh.. it's good to be home.", the cashier looking back at me returns my smile, and without needing any history or explanation, knows exactly what I mean.

(movie theater in the downtown area of my hometown)

(image credit)

The Story of Zoe

Zoe was due on August 18, 2007.  Her brother was born one week past his due date and so, on August 21, 2007, when I showed no signs of impending labor, my obstetrician scheduled an induction for the following day.

On Wednesday, August 22, my induction was started at 9:30 am.  Zoe was born at 3:30 pm weighing 8 lbs, 12 oz and (seemingly) perfectly healthy.

Thursday morning, a lactation nurse was working with Zoe and I because she was having some latching issues.  While we were working on it, Zoe began twitching on her right side. The nurse grabbed her from me, held her firm and the twitching stopped after only a few seconds.  She said it seemed odd, not like normal newborn uncontrolled movement, but stopped rather quickly and so she thought it was fine.  She did tell me if Zoe started this again, to immediately press the call button.  We were fine for the next few hours.

Later that afternoon, my husband had gone home to shower, change clothes and was going to come back to the hospital that evening to visit.  A family friend was visiting and holding Zoe when she started to twitch again.  I immediately pressed the call button and the nurses came running.  They whisked her away from me and off down the hall.  My friend stayed with me, while I called my husband to tell him what was going on.  I don't think he realized at the time how serious it was (I was trying not to make a big deal of it) because he did not arrive at the hospital until a few hours later.

After I called my husband, a doctor came in and began asking me extensive questions about my pregnancy and health.  He said Zoe was having a seizure when they retrieved her from me and they took her down to the NICU for observation.  While in the NICU, she had another lengthy and serious seizure at which point they "loaded her up" with Phenobarbital.  He said I could go down and see her later, but that she was completely knocked out from the drugs.  She spent the night in the NICU and we spent the night in another wing, not sleeping and wondering what was happening with our baby girl.

On Friday, she went down to radiology for an MRI and we were pretty much in the dark about what was going on.  We were told that the radiologist was not specialized in pediatric radiology and that they had forwarded the tests to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for review and were waiting on word from them. (we later learned that the radiologist at our hospital actually diagnosed Zoe, but they wanted CHOP to confirm and didn't want to alarm us until it was confirmed)  My obstetrician came by to check up on me and offered to keep me in the hospital one more night so that I could be near Zoe.  It was a generous offer, but for some reason, my gut told me to go home, so I asked to be discharged instead.  I am so glad I listened to my instinct.

I left the hospital with flowers and "Welcome Baby Girl" balloons and an empty car seat.  I cannot tell you how empty I felt walking out of the hospital with a carseat and no baby.  While standing out front, waiting on the hospital valet to bring our car around, several well-meaning people saw me with the balloons and carseat and wandered over to admire my newborn.  They would glance down with a smile and abruptly look up, confused.  I weakly managed to utter an explanation, "She had to stay for observation." while barely keeping myself together.

That afternoon, I arrived home, took a shower and had just settled into my bed for a much-needed nap, when the phone rang.  It was the hospital.  They were calling to tell us that Children's Hospital of Philadelphia had called them back and were sending an ambulance and a transport team right away.  They were taking Zoe to Philadelphia.  I was so glad I had the doctor discharge me or I would have been stuck at the hospital another night while my child was forty-five miles away in Philadelphia.

We met Zoe at CHOP and they settled her into a room.  It was Friday night and still, no information was forthcoming.  They have several parent rooms for parents to spend the night, but they were all full, so we stayed a few hours and drove home, only to get back up Saturday morning and drive over there again and spend the day.  Every time I walked through the doors of CHOP, I was overcome with fear and sorrow.  I  couldn't hold myself together and I didn't even know why.  No one was giving us any information- Zoe was still heavily medicated and had been sleeping since Friday afternoon.

On Monday, a neurologist came to meet with us.  She delivered the news that Zoe had suffered a stroke.  They could not pinpoint the exact moment of the stroke only that it had occurred within 72 hours of birth (either before or after) but officially diagnosed it as "perinatal stroke" rather than "neonatal". She showed us the MRI with the dark area of Zoe's brain that had suffered damage from the clot. She said it was surprisingly common- 1 in 4000 births.  They tested for all the other causes, clotting disorder, infections, etc. and determined it was just a random, unfortunate thing.  She said the part of Zoe's brain suffering damage was the left thalamus. Were were given a folder full of information on CHOP's Pediatric Stroke Team and told that since Zoe was an infant, it was hard to know how this would affect her, but if it did it would most likely be through her gross motor skills on her right side.  We were told she might suffer a weakness on that side, but that we wouldn't begin to see this until it became time for her to start rolling over, crawling, sitting up, etc.

We were discharged from CHOP on Wednesday- one week after Zoe was born and five days after she was transported to CHOP with instructions to bring her back in six weeks.  We saw the entire stroke team (neurologist, occupational, physical and speech therapists and a social worker) periodically for the next two years.  They monitored her progress over that time and determined shortly after she turned two, that she had hit all the appropriate milestones and that we did not need to return unless something came up.  Everyone at the hospital was so kind and helpful and were so excited to see all that Zoe could do during her last appointment.  We were told that sometimes, when stroke happens in infancy, the brain is able to rewire itself with other parts of the brain taking over the functions of the damaged parts.  This appears to be what happened with Zoe's brain.

Now, Zoe is a happy, healthy, four-year-old and to look at her, you would never know she gave us such a scare.  We are so thankful our story turned out so well, but many others don't have such positive outcomes.  The fact is, people are still relatively unaware of pediatric stroke.  It can happen at any age and parents and doctors need to be aware of it's possibility and what to look for.  May is Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month and I wanted to share our personal stroke story.  I hope you never have to go through what we went through.  Just remember, kids have strokes too!

If you would like more information on pediatric stroke, you can visit, Stroke.org, The Pediatric Stroke Program at CHOP and Children's Hemiplegia and Stroke Association.

Zoe in the NICU at CHOP (she was still unconscious from the meds)

Here she is starting to finally wake up after a reduction in meds:

awake but pretty jaundiced:

My little pediatric stroke survivor, Zoe, at 4: