Premature Baby Israel – From Near Death to Life!

Our insurance refused to pay for his bills saying that they do not cover surgical procedures for minors below 3 months…

My wonderful baby boy is called ISRAEL OCHOO. I put this in capital letters because I celebrate each day that I can speak about him and acknowledge that he is indeed alive and well. He was born pre-term (premature baby) at 30 weeks.

Two weeks in the incubator made him 32 weeks by the time we were discharged for home. We went home with him and took as much care of him as we could given his delicate state as a premature baby.

Growth at the back of the mouth

About one month later he developed a growth at the back of the mouth that obstructed his breathing. We were very worried about this and as any parent can imagine, something that prevents your little one from breathing is one of your worst nightmares. We quickly sought the services of an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) specialist doctor. The specialist however said Israel was too young to be operated on. Also that it would be dangerous and risky to attempt this.

The doctor advised us to “survive” on giving him some inhalers in order to buy time for him to add weight to enable the surgery be undertaken. As you can imagine, because of all this distress he was in, he wasn’t feeding at all. We had no option but to feed him using nasogastric tube – a tube that ran from his little nose into his stomach. This was such a scary time for us! But we kept on pushing on and praying and doing our best to see how we could keep him going as we waited. Things sadly did not get any better. He was getting worse by the day and not adding weight at all.

We decided to just take the risk

So we prayed about it and discussed it and together we decided to just take the risk and get the surgery done as the situation was deteriorating before our very eyes as we continued to stay with Israel at home hoping he would improve. We went in to hospital and the surgery was done. We thought it was over only for the worst to happen. While he was in the recovery room he had a cardiac arrest! We resuscitated him for about five minutes and then his heart started beating again! All this time we were praying very very hard and had had great faith that he was going to live.

Our insurance refused to pay for his bills

He stayed in the ICU for only two days and was discharged home straight from there. This was because our insurance refused to pay for his bills saying that they do not cover surgical procedures for minors below 3 months. This was yet another blow for us, but we forged forwards. We were forced to dig into our already empty pockets and also borrow from our friends to meet these costs.

He defied all the odds

We are so thankful to God that our dear Israel pulled through. He defied all the odds – as a premature baby and as a sick infant. Made it by God’s grace! Now a big, handsome and healthy boy, he loves running around and talking. He is now one year seven months old and we thank God for His gift to us every single day. What a blessing! An amazing miracle!

 

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