Wed, Nov 25 2009
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Young girl gives thanks for chance to be normal Elise Josephine Randall was born two weeks premature at 7:19 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2001, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Immediately after her birth, Elise was whisked away to St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. Candice said it was the beginning of five months in the hospital with the baby. Elise was 3 months old when she underwent her first heart surgery. Doctors used a piece of tissue to replace the malformed valve, but the tissue disintegrated and the valve still leaked. “She had a significantly serious problem and was chronically sick,” said Armin Wagman, M.D., pediatric cardiologist and medical director of Pediatrix Cardiology in Springfield. “We had to do something.” Elise’s heart and lung problems continued. Her oversized pulmonary arteries still interfered with her breathing, and her heart couldn’t efficiently pump oxygenated blood to the rest of her body. She was increasingly susceptible to respiratory infections. At 16 months, Elise was still suffering from viral and bacterial infections, was in and out of the hospital, and had to inhale steroids every day to stabilize her lungs. Candice winces when she recalls life as a young mother with a baby addicted to morphine, Valium and Versed. Doctors’ notes outlined complex instructions for weaning Elise off the drugs and treating her with methadone. Although Elise eventually was released from the hospital, Candice had to take her home with documents titled “What to do if the infant is not breathing or turns blue.” Candice never married Elise’s father and had little contact with him after the girl was born. She said her greatest support during those difficult years was her older daughter, Caravana, now 14. As Elise got older, she was still so weak that many days she couldn’t go to school or had to go home early. She slept all the time, had so much pain in her legs that she had trouble doing physical activities, and had no appetite. ‘Like an old lady’ Elise’s story is filled with doctors’ notes recommending that she not be in day care, explaining her many absences from school, and stressing the importance of letting her rest during physical-education classes and not putting her “in a competitive situation.” For years, Elise said, she “felt like an old lady,” not the vibrant grade-schooler she was. The pain was bad, but the morphine was worse, so Elise refused the drugs in exchange for a clear head. “I couldn’t slide down the slide because it hurted a little,” Elise said as she demonstrated how she now uses the slide without pain. “And I couldn’t run because when I was running, my heart would beat fast.” ‘God’s clubhouse’ Through it all, Elise said, she wasn’t scared. One night, she had a dream that she went to the park with her mother and climbed up a ladder into heaven. 
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