San Diego 2010, by Kate Davila

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This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a benefit gala for Kawasaki Disease research in San Diego, CA. I was asked, as a "KD Kid", to share my story with Kawasaki Disease. They, in turn, printed it on a large foam core poster and placed it, along with several other "KD Kids" boards throughout the event. Below is my story:

With my poster at the event

My Kawasaki Disease experience

In December of 1993, at the age of 15, I became ill during my school’s winter break. My symptoms included flu-like stomach issues, red, bloodshot eyes, swollen lymph nodes in my neck, and dry, cracked lips. After three trips to the pediatrician over the course of 10 days, I was admitted to the emergency room for re-hydration via IV. While there, I started to feel worse. I began throwing up and they performed blood tests, chest x-rays, and a spinal tap to rule out meningitis. All tests came back negative. I was admitted to the hospital and placed in isolation. My pediatrician went home and poured over his medical books until he found what he felt was a proper diagnosis for me – Kawasaki Disease.

He contacted doctors at a larger hospital about an hour away and they agreed to admit me. I was brought down via ambulance, and started treatment with gamma globulin. Within 24 hours, I felt better. After a few days, I had a routine echocardiogram, which revealed that I had developed coronary aneurysms. I then had a cardiac catherization and it was determined that I had multiple, “giant” (8mm – 13mm in size) aneurysms on my left and right coronary arteries. I was placed on Coumadin, a blood thinner. After two weeks, I was released from the hospital and returned to my “normal” life, participating in sports with the encouragement of my cardiologist. I entered college in 1995, where one morning, about a year and a half into my college career, I awoke at 5am with arm pain on my right side only. The pain would not subside, so I called my cardiologist, who directed me to the ER for an EKG. Additionally, an enzyme test was performed and it was determined I’d suffered a small heart attack. I was 19 years old. My cardiologist informed me that my Coumadin levels (INR) had been too low and I’d formed a clot in one of the aneurysms. A few months later, I awoke with arm pain in both arms, went to the ER and had the same results via enzyme test – a second, albeit minor, heart attack. Despite the heart attacks, I was continually encouraged by my doctors to maintain a healthy lifestyle (eating right and exercising.)

Since 1997, I had occasional episodes of angina, but had no heart attacks. I had annual stress tests, echocardiograms, EKG’s and took Coumadin. I also had cardiac catherizations every three years to check on the aneurysms, which showed no change.

I maintained a healthy lifestyle, got married, moved from Maine, to Florida, to Washington State, where I live currently. In July of 2009, after a year’s worth of consultation with a perinatologist specializing in women with heart conditions, I became pregnant. I spent 9 months giving myself Heparin injections, and my pregnancy progressed normally and without complication. On March 15, 2010, my husband and I welcomed our beautiful son Santiago to the world via c-section. Having been on blood thinners prior to the surgery created some complication, and I developed a hematoma beneath my skin that required a second, exploratory surgery to remove it. After an 8 week resting period once I returned home, I began working out five days a week and started training for a 10k road race.

Unfortunately, on August 20, 2010, I suffered another small heart attack and endured my fifth cardiac catherization, which showed no change in aneurysm size but determined that a clot had formed in a tiny branch off of a main coronary artery. Again, my heart showed no damage, and since then, I’ve maintained my exercise routine with my doctor’s blessing.

I am currently 32 years old, and despite my past issues, plan to continue maintaining my active lifestyle, and have more children. Despite the occasional “set backs” of chest pains and the like, I consider myself to be very lucky – I have a wonderful husband, and a beautiful 6-month old son, who continues to amaze us every day. I try to maintain a positive outlook about life, without making light of my situation.

Santi's growing up

My almost-6-month-old Santi (seriously, how did THAT happen? How do I not still have a 3 week old little baby that I just brought home from the hospital? How is it that I don't have to support his head when I carry him all the time? How is it that he's gone from basically a little lump of a baby to a person who can roll over both ways, sit up, babble, play with his hands, play with his feet, recognize my voice and smile when he sees me, cries real tears, eats solid food and is super social? It's crazy to me!)

Anyway, since he's growing up, he's also gaining weight (sorry buddy!) and is now a hefty 18lbs. Which means carrying him and the infant car seat = almost 28lbs. Which carrying for short distances is fine, but carrying for more than that is too hard even for Tito. So we decided to get him his new convertible car seat that will stay in the car all the time. And since we were getting rid of his infant car seat, we had to get him a new stroller since the strollers we have are a jogging stroller (too big to use as a regular stroller in stores and such) and a Snap and Go, which, if not using the infant car seat, we can't use since it's just a stroller base without a seat. I love this stroller by the way, but it's time to move on to his more permanent stroller and car seat.

So after a lot of looking, and after getting one stroller (the Combi Cosmo stroller which we hated because the wheels got stuck all the time, there was no room in the underseat basket - which didn't matter because you can't get anything out of it once the kid is in the seat),we decided that it just generally sucked overall. So we returned it after a week.

Our choice (after a lot of looking and trying out in the stores) for a stroller was the Chicco Liteway


The seat folds all the way down, the basket isn't that big but we don't mind that, and we're getting a system to hang on the back of the stroller anyway to hold his stuff. It's just a really smooth stroller and he was really comfortable in it (whereas with the Combi he cried after being in it for a few minutes.)

And for his car seat, we looked at a lot of different types and brands. We decided on the Evenflo Symphony because it's basically the same as a Britax Marathon at half the price. And this seat will fit him up to 35lbs rear facing in the car, up to 65lbs forward facing in the car and will fit him up to 100lbs as a booster seat, so we don't have to buy him a separate booster seat after he's done with the car seat. And, after reading the reviews, we discovered that it's a good size and will fit in my Toyota Corolla which a lot of the larger convertible seats have a hard time fitting into smaller cars in the rear facing position.

And I found a deal on Amazon.com where the seat was $60 off the regular price! I'm excited about these items arriving (this week!) although it's a little sad that my little baby is becoming a little boy!

Fall

I do believe that fall has arrived in the Pacific NW. Not that we really had a summer, in my opinion. I can count on one hand the amount of times we went to the pool or the beach, which is sad. Oh well, fall is fun too...this year we're planning on doing some apple picking, going to a pumpkin patch (we feel like we can do this now because we have a little one!) and we'll also be celebrating my 33rd birthday! What a year it's been for me, but I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat!

Yesterday I ran a 10k race that I'd been training for since June. Not as consistently as I'd like but my goal was to run the entire race and not walk at all. Which I didn't. One blister and some very sore legs and 6.2 miles later, I crossed the finish line, finishing the race in just over an hour. I was pleased with myself, and managed to time the end of the race with Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling" which is also the first song I heard on the radio when I got the official confirmation that I was pregnant with Santiago. So that song always makes me think of Santi, and I was running the race with him as my inspiration. Here are a few photos from the day:

With my friend Jess - a great training partner! (And yes, I'm wearing a skirt to run in..."real women run in skirts" don't you know? It has spandex shorts underneath and is seriously the best thing I've ever run in..and it's cute to, so I love it!)

With Santi before the race

With Papa Beto, Tito and Santi before the race

Mid run - one lap down, one to go!

After the race with Jess

With Santi

And just because you all read this blog to see Santi more than you do to see me, here are some of his latest photos - he's wearing his lobster hat, as he's really a "Maine" boy at heart!

Santi is sitting now! We've been seeing him strain to sit up for awhile now, but we tried him sitting with a boppy around him today and he sat up for quite some time! I was so excited and took a video, which you can see here:

Santi sitting