Thank you Madame Speaker and Colleagues of the House of Representatives.
Today I am honored to stand before you with several critical care medicine specialists as we mark May as National Critical Care Awareness and Recognition Month.
I’m also here with our son, Nate, who many of you know already.
I’ve seen Nate plunge fearlessly into the Atlantic Ocean, sing with joy at his first Communion, and even dance with abandon on Governor Carney’s desk.
I’ve also seen Nate near death. He had open heart surgery at five weeks, leukemia at age 1 and, before his tenth birthday, respiratory failure.
Nate has taught us many precious lessons. One of the most important is that, with the right support, people with disabilities, and the people who love them, can overcome almost any challenge.
But you can’t do it alone.
And never has that lesson been more clear to Ted and to me than on December 29th when Nate went into respiratory failure and had to be rushed to the pediatric intensive care unit at Nemours.
Nate’s journey began when, while battling pneumonia on a general floor in the hospital, his oxygen levels plummeted, prompting a rapid response call that drew the ICU team to his room.
The team assessed him and decided he’d be better supported in the ICU with CPAP, a more aggressive form of respiratory support. Moved to Room 44, doctors tried CPAP, but again Nate’s oxygen saturation levels continued to fall. Surrounded by respiratory therapists, doctors, and nurses, Nate was closely monitored but within less than an hour, Nate’s oxygen levels had slid dangerously low. He needed to be sedated and intubated.
I’ll never forget kissing him on his head as I told him I loved him and hearing him say “I love you” just before he was being placed into a medically induced coma. Sadly, it became clear that even a ventilator couldn’t save him. Doctors told us Nate had just one chance left: a risky but necessary procedure called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, ECMO. This is a life-support procedure that uses a machine to pump blood outside of the body and back to the body’s tissues, while also removing carbon dioxide and adding oxygen. We were told a team would need to be called and a hospital-wide alert went out. Soon surgeons, other doctors, respiratory therapists, and nurses swarmed Nate’s room. They quickly transformed it into an OR and began the process of moving Nate to life support. So grave was his condition that we had our older son, Sam, brought to the hospital so he could see Nate and say what he feared would be a last few words.
Fortunately, the procedure worked, but the next day Nate faced scary complications: Multiple blood clots putting Nate at risk for a massive stroke. Equally scary was the tube oxygenating Nate’s blood had slipped into Nate’s heart next to the atrial wall. Again, we saw the army of surgeons and other doctors and nurses rush to Nate’s room as it turned into an operating room for a second time.
With great skill and innovation, the lead surgeon and an interventional radiologist were able to snare the tube, lift it from the heart, and reposition it into a safer place. I’ve heard the phrase “never say die” many times, but I never understood what it truly meant until I saw these doctors in action; we will always remember their unwavering commitment to Nate.
Nate was put on a new machine and given new medication so the clots would stop forming.
For five days, Nate remained on ECMO so his collapsed lungs could rest to become strong enough to fight the infection. He was able to come off ECMO, but remained in a coma and on a ventilator. On January 8th doctors were hopeful that Nate could be safely extubated. Unfortunately, that procedure didn’t work and he had to be reintubated. He remained gravely ill, suffering from continued lung collapse, acute delirium, and agitation requiring multiple sedatives to keep him in an induced coma.
As you, the General Assembly, gaveled in on January 9th, Ted and I watched the proceedings from Nate’s bedside, deeply grateful for the prayer offered up by Representative Dukes for Nate’s recovery. Later that day, we almost lost our son for the fourth time when his respiratory failure suddenly woresened.
Doctors kept trying different options to keep Nate alive, ultimately deciding a tracheostomy was Nate’s best chance. He got his trach on January 12th and finally we began to see him take a turn for the better. He remained in the ICU for several more weeks as his lungs healed and he became less reliant on ventilator. Eventually, he was moved to a rehab floor of the hospital. There, for the next six weeks, Nate regained his strength and his lungs healed. Ultimately, he was well enough to have his trach removed and we could bring him home.
Candidly, Ted and I lost hope several times during this ordeal. But thankfully, miraculously, the doctors and nurses standing with me never did. I say “miraculous” but that doesn’t do it justice, really. Miraculous evokes an instaneous healing, a touching of the hem of the garment. That was not what happened here. I have never seen a group of skilled, dedicated professionals work harder to achieve a goal. There was no magic, just steely determination, innovation, and ceaseless effort to bring Nate back from the brink of death and restore him to full health.
For our family, this was nothing we could have ever imagined, literally the most extraordinary of experiences. But for the ICU team, in a sense, it was just another day at the hospital. And that’s what makes these men and women so remarkable.
Heroics in an ICU are routine; they’re happening every day; they’re happening right now. Because of that, it’s easy not to fully appreciate what these doctors, nurses do. But it’s vital that we recognize them today and every day.
I want to speak now, not as a politician, but as a mother, to express my profound and everlasting gratitude to all of you who cared for Nate — and to those other critical care specialists standing with us today who care for Delawareans in similar dire situations.
As I said, “miraculous” doesn’t do justice to what you do for patients.
Please give these caregivers a round of applause.
It’s now my privilege to ask Dr. Shirley Viteri, Medical Director of the Nemours PICU, to share a few words with you.