Brandon's Story

August 8th 2006 Brandon Michael Pollard was brought into this world....at first he was not breathing because of the drugs they had given me. They finally got him breathing, but when he got to the nursery they could see that something was not right with him. He looked weak and was not responding well to room air. So they checked his platelets and they were low so they decided to airlift him to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. It was hard on me to see my baby go like that and not even get to hold him. I was not used to that. I have three other children and got them back as soon as they weighed them. But I knew it was for the best he go, I was so scared, my doctor said if you feel like going you can go. I was gone to be with my baby boy.

We get there 3hrs after they airlifted him because it was that far away. I went straight to him and he was so precious regardless if he was on all those machines. I cry every time I think of him like that. They told us he would be fine and that he would go home because everything was looking much better and his blood count was going up to normal. I was so excited...my mom and husband had gone with me so I thought they could go home bring me some clothes the next day and all would be fine. Well I get up the next day and go to see him and they tell me to sit down they wanted to talk to me. They wanted to let me know that it was nothing I had done but he was missing brain tissue that would never come back. I was so upset and in shock all I could think about was was he going to die. I asked them they said "No he is doing very well and can eat on his own and breath on his own he is just going to be special." In my eyes I just knew I had done something wrong, they ran test on him for CMV and it came back NEGATIVE so that was ruled out all of what they call the torch diseases came back negative. They have no idea what happened. Well 2 hard long weeks went by and finally they called and said " Are you ready to bring your baby home?" I thought well YES! lol . So me and my husband went and took a CPR test and car seat class and stayed the night so that if we had any questions we could ask and they could see if we could take care of him by our selves. We finally got him ready to leave and they did send him home with O2 because of precaution measures but it was only 1/8th lpm.

Then we get home a couple weeks later we go to eye clinic and find out he has cataracts, that have to be removed. We get those removed and he wears contact now.

We also stayed a week in the hospital because I noticed his head swelling and they had to put a shunt in to drain the spinal fluid that had been building up. He did really well with that and has had no problems at all with it. Brandon has had a rough start but if you looked at him you would not know any difference. He goes to a special needs Daycare that integrates with regular children, I love it there. He has 3 wonderful siblings, Trey, Jordan, Lance who love him to death. He has  a hard time holding his head up but he can scoot around on the floor on his belly, he can smile, laugh, grasp toys, rollover, he knows who is mom and dad. He knows when he is out of his daily routine and he hates to be alone. Brandon is delayed but that is ok because we can deal with that. Another thing to all who those doctors who tell you not to get a shunt please think again. Brandon has one and 7mths later we can tell a lot of difference and also on his websites you can see pictures of the difference before and after shunt his brain expanded and the fluid started to drain very well. I hope you all enjoyed his story and please feel free to visit him on his sites.

Brandon's Caring Bridge Site