AIDAN'S STORY

February 26, 2006 began like any other day. It was a Saturday and my scheduled weekend to work as a nursing assistant in a large acute care and rehabilitation hospital. I woke at 6 a.m., dressed, and before leaving the house, kissed my three month old son, Aidan, who lay sleeping in his crib. I told my husband that I was leaving for work and closed the door behind me. I didn’t know that when I returned home to the house again, my world would be forever changed.

I drove to work and began my day. At approximately 9:00am, I called my husband to check on Aidan. He said that Aidan was fine and our step-daughter, four years old at the time, was playing in the living room. I told him goodbye and that I would talk to him later. About an hour later, around 10:30am, the nursing supervisor came into the room where I was helping a patient and told me I had a phone call from my husband. She said that my husband sounded scared and that I need to take the phone call right away. I took the phone call. My husband told me that he had left Aidan and our step-daughter alone in the living room together for a few minutes. When he returned to the living room, he said that Aidan was in a different position and crying. He told me that when he picked up Aidan, Aidan went limp and seemed to stop breathing for a minute. I could hear Aidan in the background. His scream was shrill and high pitched and I knew that something was immediately wrong. I told my husband to get Aidan and our step-daughter ready and that I would be home within half an hour.

I left work immediately and proceeded home. I called the pediatrician on the way and explained the story that my husband had told me: that he had left the baby on the floor alone with our four year old step-daughter for a few minutes and had left the room, and that when he returned, the baby was in a different position and was screaming. Once at the pediatrician, the doctor came into the room and examined Aidan. Aidan was no longer crying, but the top of his head was beginning to swell. The pediatrician told us that it appeared Aidan was having a cerebral hemmorrhage, or bleeding of his brain, and that we needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. She also ordered stat x-rays and CAT scans. Once we arrived at the hospital, there was a flurry of activity. I don’t remember everything that happened that day, but after Aidan had a CAT scan of his brain and several x-rays, we were sent to the emergency room, where Aidan had an IV inserted into his arm. The attending physician came into the room and began to explain that Aidan’s brain was bleeding and that his injuries were too severe to be treated in our community hospital. Aidan needed to be transported to a children’s hospital for evaluation. A pediatric trauma team was assembled from the Children’s Hospital at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania and within two hours, Aidan was on his way to the Children’s Hospital.

My husband and I returned home to our house and packed for the trip. We arrived at the medical center later that evening. Aidan was laying in a small cradle in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The physician had fitted him with a neck brace until further radiologic tests could be performed to rule out fracture in his neck or spine. We were not allowed to talk to Aidan because the doctors said that he would recognize our voices and would want to be held. At this point, we weren’t even allowed to hold Aidan. Aidan was also taken off nutrition by mouth, due to the fact that his brain was bleeding and his body was beginning to shut down. Our baby who had been taking over 8 ounces of milk from the bottle that morning now could not even eat on his own. Over the course of the evening, the physicians and interns in the PICU interviewed my husband and I and asked how Aidan has been injured over and over again. A caseworker from the Dauphin County Protective Services unit came to the hospital later that evening to interview us. My husband grew angry at the questioning and I assured him that as long as he stayed calm, everything would be fine. I did not know that my worst fears would soon unfold before my eyes.

Between 7p.m. and 11p.m. we were told several times by the medical resident that the neurosurgeon wanted to speak to us. The neurosurgeon was still in surgery, however, and my husband was becoming incrasingly agitated. He told me that he was hungry and wanted to find a hotel where we could sleep in the night. We left for the night and returned back to the hospital in the morning. When we returned to the intensive care unit, a nurse ushered us to a computer and shows us the radiographs of Aidan’s bones. Aidan had seven fractured ribs and a fractured wrist that were in varying stages of healing. The radiologist later determined that the fractures were seven to ten days old. The nurse told us, “Now we’re really looking at this as a case of abuse.” Once this statement was made, my husband grew immediately tense. He told me that he was not going to stay at a hospital if he was going to be accused of abuse and he told me to drive home back to the hotel and then to take him home. I begged him to stay with me and tried to convince him not to leave, but to no avail. He cared only that he was being accused of abuse. I told the charge nurse in the intensive care unit that we would return later, knowing full well that it was a lie and that I would be returning to the Children’s Hospital by myself.

Aidan was a patient in the Children’s Hospital for twelve days. He had been diagnosed with two brain hemmorhages, in addition to the broken bones that had been found. One brain hemmorhage most likely occurred on the day of the initial visit to the hospital and a previous brain hemmorhage had taken place one to three weeks prior. The neurosurgeon, Dr. Mark Dias, was able to determine this because they had cultured the blood collecting around the brain; some blood was new from the current bleeding and some blood was old, from the previous hemmorhage. Due to the fact that there was so much bleeding in the brain, however, it was difficult to pinpoint the exact date when the first hemmorhage occurred. It was also revealed later that Aidan had two fractures in his lower spine. He has two scars on his spine where those fractures occurred.

In addition, the blood vessels in his retinas had been hemmorhaged, a clinical sign that Aidan had been shaken. Scar tissue had formed on the retina in his right eye, leading to blindness, and the pediatric opthamaologist stated that the disability was permanent. Each morning, the pediatric neurosurgeon would come to the bedside and evaluate Aidan with his team of nurses, medical residents, and specialists. Most days, they would return to drain the blood that was building on his brain with a large catheter needle, sometimes returning to the bedside multiple times throughout the day to repeat the procedure. Dr. Dias could give me no guarantees of Aidan’s prognosis. He stated that besides evacuating the blood that was collecting on the brain, there was nothing that he could do to stop the bleeding. He also was unable to tell what damage would be permanent. He told me that Aidan could be stable in the hospital, and after returning home, his brain could shrink and he might become permanently disabled. The doctor also was considering placing a shunt in Aidan’s brain to help with the blood that was collecting around his brain. Thankfully, around the tenth day of Aidan’s hospital stay, the bleeding began to subside and it was decided that Aidan could return home.

Aidan and I moved out of the house with my husband and moved home with my parents. I filed for divorce three months later. The next six months were filled with visits to the Children’s Hospital, with follow-up appointments for x-rays, cat scans, bone scans, and meetings with the pediatric neurosurgeon and pediatric opthamologist. Aidan’s head was very swollen, even months after returning home. He also had a deep furrow in his head from where the blood had been evacuated during his hospitalization.
Aidan cried and screamed often, the same high pitched cry that I had heard over the phone the day he was injured. Dr. Dias later told me that this cry is a hallmark of brain injury. Aidan did things very slowly and I watched cautiously for signs of any recovery, but also for signs of any delay. Aidan took his first steps at eleven months, on Halloween, one month before his birthday. The blindness in his right eye has since resolved. I personally believe in the power of prayer and am grateful for the many friends and family who prayed for Aidan’s life and for his recovery.

Today, Aidan is a healthy and happy child, with some delays. He has been followed by an occupational therapist, educational therapist, and speech therapist for the last year, receiving several hours of therapy each week. The therapists have worked with him to learn how to hold utensils, drink from an open cup, develop social skills, and sit with his classmates long enough to hear the first part of a story. He recently transitioned to the county’s intermediate unit for services and spends half of the week in a normal pre-school classroom and half of the week in a special education classroom. Aidan also has a therapeutic staff support worker and a behavioral therapist to assist him in problems with anger and aggression due to the injury caused to the prefrontal cortex of his brain. Aidan also has deficits in sensory integration and processing skills, an area that his teachers and therapists have devoted a great deal of attention to in developing strategies and interventions for him in the classroom.

I have used this traumatic and terrible experience to help others. In the months following Aidan’s injuries, I received support and encouragement from social workers and therapists who helped me confront the situation and the impact that it had on our family physically, emotionally, and spiritually. With their assistance, I was able to turn my personal tragedy into a healing experience that allowed me to increase the awareness of shaken baby syndrome in Berks County. I assist other families in navigating the network of social services for their children and regularly speak to pregnancy classes on the topic “Take a Break, Don’t Shake,” which is a campaign to raise awareness of shaken baby syndrome in Pennsylvania. My personal experience provided me with an opportunity to understand the positive, profound impact that social workers play in the lives of others. I am now pursuing my Master’s Degree in Social Work at Temple University with an emphasis on Children and Families so that in the future I may use my experience and education to help families in the same way that caring and compassionate professionals helped my own.

Aidan’s father was tried in the county court system in spring of 2008 on counts of aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering the welfare of a child and endangering the welfare of another person. He was found guilty of only one of those accounts and served less than six months in county prison. He has always maintained that he did not hurt Aidan, and has stated it was either his four year old daughter or one of our caregivers that caused the injuries. The district attorney provided evidence in court that it would have required extreme force to cause the kind of injuries that our son suffered, and that a four year old child would have been unable to cause those kinds of injuries, even if she had picked him up and dropped him. Although we had several friends and family members who babysat for Aidan while we worked, not one was considered to be a suspect in the case. Today my ex-husband lives out of state and is not allowed to have any contact with Aidan.

Aidan recently celebrated his third birthday. He is truly a miracle child. When he arrived in the intensive care unit at Hershey Medical Center, the neurosurgery team did not know if he would live. They told us that if he did live, they could not guarantee what kind of quality of life he would have. I was often told that Aidan could grow to live in a vegetative state and that the future was largely unknown. While the effects of Aidan’s injuries are still visible, I am grateful that God gave us another chance at life. Aidan is a bright and beautiful boy. He loves to play with Thomas trains and watch Curious George. He just learned to put his coat on by himself and recently started learning to use the potty. He loves animals and signing the Goodnight Song before bed. He loves to explore the outdoors and wants to know how things work. Most of all, he loves his friends and family. We are thankful for the second chance that Aidan has been given, and count our blessings every day.

Special thank you to Kate Jenkin for sharing her story with us.