Thankful for the health of a baby that came into the world weighing one pound, nine ounces
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday to pause and reflect on the blessings in our lives. For one Rogers City family, the improving health of a 19-month old baby, who was born four months premature, is something they truly will be grateful for this year. Seth Atkins, the son of Mike and Trish Atkins, was born April 2, 2004, many months before his due date of July 22. In the early days of his birth, doctors did not give him much of a chance to live, and they said if he did make it through those first critical hours and days, he would not live a normal life. ?I?m thankful he is alive and that everything is going so well for him,? said Mike Atkins, Sunday. ?(Doctors) told me I would really have a tough rollercoaster ride; that he would probably be sick all of the time and be in and out of hospitals. He is a blessing.?
SETH WAS expected to develop cerebral palsy, which has not materialized. Mike and Trish were told Seth would probably never walk and could be in a wheelchair the rest of his life. His physical therapist, who sees Seth once a week, does not believe that will happen. The little guy also was expected to need glasses, but following recent eye surgery, his sight is fine. Many of Seth?s early health problems came from a grade four-brain bleed on his right side, which was expected to cause brain damage in the toddler.
Trish said, ?It dissipated; it disappeared.? Doctors said the condition usually does not go away, ?but it did,? she added. ?I know he is a miracle many times over,? Mike said. At the Atkins? home in Rogers Township last Friday, Seth was attempting to wiggle from the lap of his adoring sister, Shayla, 11, to move around the living room floor. He sits up, but needs a hand close by to make sure he does not completely fall over. His parents say Seth is crawling and attempting to coast along the furniture. This is a wide-eyed, alert young boy, who now weighs more than seven times his original weight (14 pounds, seven ounces). ?He?s been a tough little guy,? said Mike Atkins. Trish Atkins said, ?He is using everything the way he should be using it.?
THE ATKINS? unexpected journey started in the early morning hours of April 2, 2004. Trish was into her fifth month of pregnancy, and after not having problems with the birth of her first four children; Michael, Melissa, Scott, and Shayla, she was stunned that something did not feel right. At the insistence of family members, Trish was on her way to the hospital in Alpena when her water broke. When Trish arrived at the hospital, she was immediately given a phone and was told she needed to have her husband come to the hospital because both she and the baby were in danger. ?I was scared,? Trish said. ?I didn?t think I was going to make it. They wanted to fly me, but they said I was too sick, so they left me in Alpena.?
Trish would later learn that an e. coli infection had developed in a tooth and is now blamed for the premature birth. After a four delay because of head winds, a helicopter arrived in Alpena and transported Seth to U of M Hospital in Ann Arbor. Trish remained behind to be treated for the next two weeks, not knowing what was going on.
IT WAS not until the next day that Mike and Shayla arrived in Ann Arbor, and the news was not good. Mike learned that Seth had a deadly level of potassium in his blood. ?They told me right from the get-go that he would die because of the potassium in his blood. I have a cousin down there who is a doctor. When they did an upper bowel operation, they told me ?Seth is going to die in a couple of hours, or maybe sooner.? ? Mike wanted to make sure Seth had been baptized and was told by a nurse that it already had occurred. Shayla was devastated upon hearing the news and suffered a seizure. She began to pray for him. Trish
The baby that some doctors thought should have had the plug pulled was released after a six-month hospital stay, just about the same time he started to drink his first water and eat his first food. As an eighteenth birthday present to daughter Melissa, Mike and Trish allowed their oldest daughter to become the first person to actually hold Seth.
?Seth is the only baby who went through what he went through in his short little life, that they?ve ever seen at U of M,? said Trish. The family also is grateful to the hospital staff that made so much of their time away from home so comfortable. At this time of year, there is much to be thankful for. ?When my other children were born, I guess I just took them for granted. Every little thing he does in life, I look at it as a miracle,? said Mike Atkins. ?I thank the Lord, for just how good he is.?