Join us this week as Kimberly Spriggs shares her son’s journey after he was diagnosed with CDH.
Tune in to at 6:00 pm EST, February 15, 2022 to https://www.blogtalkradio.com/cdh/2022/02/15/february-15-2022-guests–carlos-and-kimberly-spriggs.
Listen to archives of the radio show at http://www.cdhradio.org.
The Spriggs family wanted nothing more than to bring home a healthy baby. They had battled through four prior pregnancy losses. They had experienced heartache, for in a prior pregnancy they had already heard the words, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. At a 12 week scan they had found out their son had CDH and they were so devastated. After testing and lots of very hard decisions, due to the baby’s severity of his CDH, they made a heartbreaking decision to not continue that pregnancy.
Fast forward to August 2020, they learned they were expecting once again. Kimberly shares, “we were hopeful but nervous going into that appointment when we found out about Oliver’s CDH at our 20-week anatomy scan. At the end of our pregnancy prior to Ollie we were told there was a 1% chance that a following pregnancy we would have CDH. Outside of me being sick, being pregnant with Ollie was great, I loved feeling him kick and move around.”
This time around even being faced with the unknown, they were referred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In January 2021, they were told their son had a severe left sided CDH, just like their prior son’s CDH. This time the Spriggs were given more information and found a hospital equipped to care for a CDH baby. They choose to relocate a little over an hour and a half away from home to give Ollie the best fighting chance to beat CDH.
Oliver was born April 7, 2021. This marked the day he began his fight against CDH. Kimberly shares, “our little hero Ollie had his CDH repair while on ECMO on 4/21/21. He was able to come off ECMO on 4/27/21, after his repair he got sick three times due to an infected collection of fluid around his patch, was on an oscillator three times and intubated two times, after his second extinction he successfully was able to be put on a bipap machine and just recently was put on cpap a little over a week ago 24/7 and is just on a nose cannula and he is doing well. We have been on this CDH and NICU journey for 10 months, waiting for the day when we can go home!”
Kimberly shares, “we have been on this NICU/CDH journey for 10 months now, it has been a roller coaster ride! Very good days and very bad days. The past couple months we have had a lot of good days! Ollie has been so strong thru out it all and he is absolutely amazing! We are waiting to go home; CHOP is requiring us to have nursing to go home so currently we are just waiting on that.” The nursing care is required for his respiratory support. Ollie is still battling pulmonary hypertension.
The Spriggs family are currently holding a coming home fundraiser for Oliver. The goal of this fundraiser is to ensure that he will have everything he needs when he is able to come home. The Spriggs Family relocated to get the necessary care for their son. The last ten months have not been easy. If you would like to donate to Ollie’s fundraiser, please visit https://www.facebook.com/donate/1341487069700622/.
Tune in to the radio show to hear more about Ollie’s journey with CDH.
If you would like to share your story, please visit https://cdhi.org/shareyourstory/.
