Like many children in the county, Hannah Raymond has had to overcome multiple obstacles since she was born. In fact, she has already had many different surgeries since birth to help her with some medical conditions.
“When I had her, she was six and a half weeks early. I had her in Jackson, and she was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus,” explained Kay Raymond, Hannah’s mom. “She had her first surgery when she was a day old. They had to go in and close up her spine. She had her VP shunt placed when she was about a year old. When she first started walking, she had leg braces and a little walker. She has leg braces but doesn’t need the little walker now. The whole time I was pregnant with her, they were telling me that she’ll never be able to walk. When I had her, her spina bifida happened to be a little lower than what they thought. Before she had her first surgery, while I was meeting with the surgeon, he told me that if she came out kicking her legs like she had been then she would be able to walk with help.”
While she is able to walk, the spina bifida has affected other things for Hannah.
“Her spina bifida affects her bowels and bladder. I have complete control over both of them,” expressed Kay. “It affects her from waist down. She doesn’t really have any feeling in her feet and legs.”
The sweet seven year old now has to face yet another major surgery that will correct an issue with her bladder and hopefully allow her to have more independence as she gets older.
“On December 15, they are going to do a major surgery on her that will take about six to eight hours long. They will go in and take some of her small intestines to put on her bladder because her bladder is damaged, and it will somewhat repair it. Then he will have a small hole in her side for me to be able to cath her. I’ve had to cath her just about her entire life, so now I will be able to cath her from the side instead of how I’ve been doing it,” informed Kay. “He’s also going to take some of her colon and move it over because I also have to do enemas. He wants to go ahead and do it now so that he doesn’t have to go back in later and do it. It’s not a colostomy but is called something else, but I will be able to do the enema from there from now on. It will make it where she can be more independent because as she gets older, she will know what she needs to do and can go to the bathroom herself.”
Her recovery from the surgery will be a slow process and require her mom and herself to adjust to a new way of life. They will be trained on how to properly maintain and clean the new spots that will be created during surgery.
“When she has the surgery, she and I will be in the hospital for two weeks, and then she’ll come home with a tube,” stated Kay. “Then, we’ll go back six weeks after her surgery, and they’ll pull out all the tubes she comes home with. They will then teach me how to cath her in the new spot, how to do her enemas in the new spot, and how to do her flushes because I will have to do a flush every day at home to keep the mucus and everything down.”
While Hannah does stop sometimes and question her mom about the upcoming surgery, she usually is able to go about her day and do what she enjoys. She doesn’t allow her disability from the spina bifida hinder her and works hard each day to grow, learn, and just have fun.
Kay’s sister wanted to do something to help support Hannah in her upcoming journey, so she started a gofundme account to assist in covering the costs for the procedure and hospital stay. Anyone who would like to donate can go to gofund.me/c9072455.
