When most people think of 2020, they can only see the devastation caused by the pandemic and loss of loved ones.
One family, however, has been blessed to witness a miracle this year: the family of Laurel Roberts.
One of the heroes for Laurel was her little brother, Jake, who is only four years old. His love and care of his sister helped contribute to the miracle that was to come.
“It was in the middle of the night. Laurel woke up complaining of a headache, and Jake came downstairs and woke us up to go up there and check on her,” stated Alyssa Roberts, Laurel’s mom. “We went to check on her, and she said her head hurt.”
At the time, they thought her head was hurting because she was hungry or from too much candy since it was just after Halloween. Her father, Steven Roberts, went back downstairs to get some Tylenol to help her. It was then that Jake again called out for his parents letting them know that something was wrong.
“While I was downstairs getting the Tylenol, Jake started hollering for me again saying, ‘Daddy Laurel really needs you. She really needs you daddy,’” recalled Steven.
When they made it back upstairs, they found any parent’s greatest fear: Laurel was unresponsive.
“When we went back up, she was unresponsive, so we called 911. There were a couple of guys that showed up. I know one of their names was Don Moore,” remembered Alyssa. “He said we needed to fly her to Jackson because Meridian really doesn’t have any pediatric service for what was going on.”
The family has strong faith that God allows everything to happen for a reason, and that He allowed Don Moore to be one of the men responding to their 911 call. His knowledge and heroic efforts, along with each of the other responders who came to help, are another reason that Laurel was able to safely get the help she needed.
“If he would have not come, we may have had a different outcome,” stated Alyssa. “We called around 1:00 in the morning and arrived in Jackson around 3:00 that morning. Don got the helicopter to land right down the road, and they put her on there. He actually intubated her before they took off.”
When they arrived in Jackson, the medical team immediately started to try and figure out what was going on.
“When we got over there, they started asking us if she had fallen or anything, and we said no,” explained Alyssa. “They finally did a CT, and they saw some bleeding deep inside her brain. They found out she had something called an AVM, which is arteriovenous malformation. Evidently, it’s something she was born with. They told us that normally people don’t know they have one until something bad happens, like this, or when they’re getting worked on for something else. Hers just happened to rupture and start bleeding in her brain.”
The medical team wanted to do a procedure that would help them see what was going on more clearly, but at the time, Laurel was too unstable. After three weeks, they were able to do the procedure. The team wanted to make sure that she was able to stay calm and nothing would happen that would cause more stress on her brain, so they took some preventative steps to help.
“They pretty much put her in a medically induced coma to keep her calm enough,” stated Steven.
After they were able to do the procedure three weeks after arriving, they were able to find some of the problems.
“They finally took her and did her procedure, and they found two more aneurisms in there that they pretty much just glue,” explained Alyssa. “An AVM is just an abnormal group of arteries and blood vessels that go together. They don’t really supply anything. They went ahead and did a craniotomy and took part of her skull off and went in there and removed that whole bundle, the AVM, out. Hopefully, we won’t have this problem again.”
The AVM that the surgeons removed was the size of two walnuts. They performed the surgery the day before her birthday. Although the surgery was done later than originally anticipated, it actually worked out even better for Laurel.
“It was originally scheduled before then. She was initially supposed to have it the day before Thanksgiving, but she started running fever,” stated Alyssa. “They cancelled the surgery, and we were so upset because it prolonged her being on the ventilator.”
Later, they learned what a blessing it was that the surgery was postponed.
“When she was originally going into surgery, she was still fully intubated,” explained Steven. “They couldn’t wake her up because she had such a bad gag reflex. By them not doing the surgery was actually a blessing because they were able to able to get the breathing tube out and waited to wake her up a little. I feel like it was able to get her stronger. She was able to go into surgery extubated and breathing on her own already.”
They stayed in the PICU for another week and then went to the floor where Laurel was able to receive a week of therapy. She had been in lying in the bed for six weeks and was unable to lift her head or hold herself up at the time.
Within a week and a half, Laurel was able to regain a good bit of her upper body strength and is steadily becoming stronger with each passing day. She was finally able to come home, so she will be able to celebrate Christmas with her family at home now.
The family is very grateful for the miracle they have been blessed with this season. They are appreciative to all the hospital staff that was able to help Laurel and to the citizens of Clarke County for all the prayers and support they have shown.
“I can’t speak more highly of the team of nurses and doctors we had,” stated Steven. “We were so blessed to have such a good support system from the town here, from teachers and family reaching out to us. There were just so many blessings in this situation: from Jake waking us up to Don being here and knowing she needed to be lifted in the helicopter right away.”
Although Laurel struggles with her short term memory for now, she will continue to get stronger with each passing day. She is truly a miracle.
