CDH International welcomes Morgan Nuchols to our Patient Advocacy Board. Morgan is an adult CDH survivor.
Morgan Nuchols was born July 26, 1993, with undiagnosed severe left Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. While she grew up, she had four diaphragm repairs, and off and on seizures. She experienced pulmonary hypertension symptoms throughout childhood before it was diagnosed at age 8. Her scoliosis was repaired at age 11 1/2. Morgan’s final CDH repair caused her PH to go crazy and her entire body at age 13 1/2 to almost her 15th birthday. During this time, her intestines were repaired as well.
Morgan grew up in Southern California, with her three healthy siblings along with parents and many family dogs over the years. As she grew up, she learned to take her time and not overwork her CDH/PH body. Her mom learned a lot but never shared with anyone including Morgan until a very young age about her health history. Between 2006 to 2008, she learned a lot including family and friends plus her middle school across the street. Morgan and her family learned how to take care of her and be creative after her scoliosis repair, using trash bags to keep her back dry. She also learned to clean central line on her chest and a large intestine bag which she took care of.
Morgan recently learned from a new pulmonary doctor that she also has chronic bronchitis from having pneumonia three times, RSV once and one bad batch of Albuterol nebulizer treatments. Her CDH lungs are 1 1/2 out of 2 normal lungs. Her air sacs are learning to exchange Co2 and she uses oxygen that connects directly to her having PH.
In 2015 into 2016, Morgan found a Pulmonary Hypertension community on FB. A year later, still puzzled by her medical history of what she learned on her own, she found CHERUBS (CDH support community pages). CHERUBS is now known as CDH International. Over time, Morgan has helped a few families with their little ones with PH and CDH. She has helped them join a Children’s PH FB page for extra medication knowledge support. During this COVID pandemic, Morgan has focused on keeping healthy and paused her part time job of child daycare. She also helps her grandpa out by hanging out with her grandma while he golfs.
To learn more about CDH International, visit https://cdhi.org/.
