By Mom, Donna Dochterman

Keith was born December 27, 1956, the most thrilling day of my life.

Warren and I had been married almost six years.  We had been told our chances of having a baby was almost zero because of low sperm count, and I was underdeveloped.  We put in for adoption and were just waiting.  I went to the doctor and told him I was gaining weight, but losing most of my meals (throwing up).  Come to find out I was three months pregnant and didn't even know it!

Keith's birth was a normal one.  My water broke about 4 a.m. December 27^th.  I was in labor all day, and Keith was born at 8:16 p.m.   The doctor had him put in an incubator right away.  They didn't take time to weigh him but guessed him to be 6 lbs.  When they took the other babies to their mothers to be fed, they always had an excuse why they didn't bring Keith to me.  The next day I overheard some doctors and nurses talking.  They said, "The father is Rh negative, but we don't think that's what the baby's trouble is."  I went into the hall and asked if they were talking about my baby and what was wrong.  They said they would be right in to talk with me.  In a few minutes Warren and the doctors walked in and told me Keith couldn't breathe or eat, but they didn't know what was wrong.  They ran test after test on Keith.  They shaved the very top of his head, so he looked like a little old man.  I got to go home on the 4^th day.

On January 2, 1957 the hospital called about 10 p.m. and wanted us to come to the hospital to take Keith to Children's Hospital.  Warren and I drove him there.  (When I think back, I can't believe they had the two of us do it, and he didn't stop breathing on the way!)  Two nurses were waiting at the entrance of Children's Hospital.  They took him and almost ran down the hall.  The next day, about 10 a.m., Dr. Mariana Gardner (we later found out she was a pediatrician) phoned.  All she said was, "We have found your boy's trouble.  I want you and your husband here by 1 p.m.  We are going to do surgery."  She turned out to be one of the best. 

When we got to the hospital, Dr. David Akers (a baby surgeon) took us in a room and showed us x-rays and told us , Keith's esophagus went from his mouth into his lung, and that's why he couldn't eat or breathe.  He said they wouldn't give us much hope, but they would do all they could for him.

During the surgery, I kept wondering what I did or didn't do to cause this.  Before I got pregnant, I was always dieting, took  diet pills, water skied, was very active.  The doctor  said later that had nothing to do width Keith's trouble, but I always have had a guilt feeling in the back of my mind.

After the surgery Dr. Akers said, "So far, so good."  He told us he opened Keith more than half the way around.  He sewed both halves of the esophagus together, and it was like sewing wet tissue paper together.  Then they put a tube down inside the esophagus temporarily until the stitches healed.  They told us he was the first one to survive the operation, and every hour he lived made his chances all the better.

They said the next critical   time was when they took the tube out.  If the stitches would hold, etc.  They told us the anesthesia did Keith's breathing by kneading an air bag through the hours of surgery.  Dr. Akers gave him a lot of credit for Keith's survival.

We went to the hospital every day, and they would roll the incubator he was in over to the hall window for us to look at him.  We couldn't touch him or talk to him.  The nurses treated him like he was the only baby in the world and acted like he was very important to them.

When he was ready to come home, I got to go to every day to the hospital for them to teach me how to take care of him.  To pick him up we had to lift his ankles like we were going to change his diaper, and then run our other hand and arm the length of his spine and bring him up to our chests.  I learned how to fix and how to feed him powdered protein milk.  Oh, did it have a bad smell!

Keith was considered premature, even though he was full term.  His skin and bones weren't fully developed.  His skin was transparent.   His arms were bowed.  The muscle at the base of his thumbs never developed, so it is like he has five fingers.

Since Keith was the first to survive that the doctors knew of, everything was an experiment.  He drank 1oz. Of powdered protein milk every hour and 1oz of water every hour in between.  He ate pureed food until he was about 2 1/2years.  (One day  he took a green bean off my plate, and chewed it up and swallowed it, and it went through okay!)  From then on we experimented giving him a little thicker food.  H would chew real good.  The doctor said the diameter of the child's esophagus is the diameter of a nickel, and where the scarred tissue is, the diameter of a small pea. Keith' food would sometimes get stuck in the scarred tissue.  Most of the time he would (in time) bring it back up and vomit it out.  During that time he couldn't swallow his saliva.  He would get very quiet and acted like he was in discomfort.  Several times we had to take to the hospital when food wouldn't come back up.  Then they ran tubes down his esophagus and either dissolved the food or pulled it out.  This was very hard on Keith.

Keith was very slow to sit(9 months), stand (17 months), and walk (18months and 4 days), but has never slowed down.  He talked real early.

He had a croupy cough for years.  People would turn around  and look at us like we were bad parents to have him out in public with croup like that!

He has had pneumonia so many times I lost track of the times. 

His teeth came in brown.  We were shook up, but were told we were lucky he had teeth at all after what he had been through.  His second teeth came in fine.

Keith had barium x-rays every few months so they could keep track of him.

He was a fussy baby but grew up to hide any pain.  He has arthritis in his ankles and shoulders.  Birth defects in his spine.  He had allergies and asthma and a hiatal hernia (could  this have been reflux?).

Twenty three years later Keith's son was born with the same thing.  I was there when John Andrew was born on June 28, 1980.  He looked like a strong, healthy boy.  He looks just like his daddy.

The next morning Keith called me and said there was a problem.  Since my daughter-in-law had John by Caesarean section and had a rough time.  She had toxemia   before he was born, so my first thoughts were that she was having trouble . Then Keith said  , No, it was the baby.  He had the same thing that he had except John's esophagus went into a pouch, and the bottom half went into the lung.

During the surgery I looked at Keith at one time, and he was sitting with his eyes closed, and tears were running down his cheeks.

It was a real heartache as a Grandma, but doubly hard to see and know what Keith wa going through as a new father.

My daughter-in-law pumped her milk and froze it, and they took it to the hospital each day.  They gave it to John.  Said he had a better start that way because it would agree with him better.

I'd go to the hospital to see John every day.  He was in a little glass room where the nurses could see him.  With Keith we couldn't touch him, but after 23 years  they encouraged parents and grandparents to wash up and put on a smock and mask and go in.  They told me to talk to him and touch him.  They found that contact helped the babies.  One afternoon (when he was a little older) I got there before his folks did, so the nurse ask if I wanted to hold him.  I was surprised but excited.  They brought in a rocking chair, and it took several nurses to get him out of his carrier (with all the tubes, cords, etc.) and put him in my lap.  Just the two of us sat and rocked and I talked and talked.  The next afternoon the nurses let me do it again. 

Now John is 16 years  old and living a normal life.  He does have asthma that flairs up now and then.  He likes baseball and was a little league player.  His favorite team is the Rockies, and he would spend all his time watching them if he could.  He worked at Coor's  Field last season, which is where the Rockies play.  John has a driving permit now, a cute girlfriend, and is doing well in school.

I thank God every day for my family.  I have Keith and his younger sister, Karen.  Keith has three children, and Karen has five children.