Friday November 27 2015
▼ This production’s full of beans 13
▼ Local players chase the Vanier Cup 22
The
Leader BRINGING JOY TO THE WORLD ▶ THE NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT AT SURREY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL TREATS SOME OF THE TINIEST PATIENTS IN B.C. SHEILA REYNOLDS
As the designated Regional Pediatric Centre in the Fraser Health region, Surrey Memorial Hospital offers specialized and unique care to babies, children and youth from Burnaby to Hope. In the coming weeks, The Leader provides an inside look at how B.C.’s second-largest hospital has grown and adapted to treat its youngest and most vulnerable patients. Joy Elizabeth Anonby couldn’t wait to make her debut. Her parents and two older brothers were eager to meet her, too. But they weren’t prepared – yet. It was April 7, 2015 when Joy decided to take centre stage and emerge from her mom’s womb. The length of a man’s shoe, she weighed about as much as a bottle of water. Eleven days earlier, complications had landed mom Kirsten Anonby in hospital. “Keep that baby in,” doctors urged her. Joy only complied for a weekand-a-half and was born at 25 weeks A LEADER SPECIAL SERIES – nearly
CARING FOR
KIDS
Kirsten Anonby holds her daughter Joy Elizabeth Anonby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital. The little girl was born nearly four months before she was due and needed specialized care for months until she grew bigger. EVAN SEAL four months before her due date. At just under 36 centimetres (14 inches long), she weighed one kilogram (2.2 pounds). With a pair of boys already running in circles at home, Kirsten and her husband David thought they were relatively prepared to welcome a third child. Until they had a preemie. “After having two normal babies, it’s a very different,” said Kirsten. “You don’t get to hold your baby. You don’t get to smell her head.”
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Unlike her other births, the Surrey mom was also greeted by an army of hospital staff, including doctors, nurses, neonatologists, respiratory therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, feeding specialists and more. “I was amazed how many people wanted to come talk to me when Joy was born,” smiled Kirsten, who called Surrey Memorial Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
home for about three-and-a-half months. “It functions communally in that sense.” At birth, Joy was considered a Level 3 preemie, meaning she wasn’t able to breathe on her own and required a ventilator and feeding tube, as well as blood pressure and other medications. continued on page 18
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