Pediatric Surgery

When Cassie Fannin was 19-weeks pregnant with her first baby, she couldn’t wait for the ultrasound that would reveal her child’s gender. During the appointment, she and her husband, Michael, were delighted as they watched their beautiful baby wiggling around on the ultrasound screen.

Fannin asked the technician, “Is it a boy or girl?”

But the technician’s previously cheerful expression now suggested something was wrong. “I’ll need to check with the doctor,” the technician said while hurrying out of the room.

Moments later, a doctor gave Fannin and her husband the devastating news that changed their lives.

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Kelli Williams holds her son, Isaac, who has been in remission for two years after undergoing treatment for stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma.

On July 19, 2017, Kelli and Dennis Williams sat in a pre-op room at Seattle Children’s with their 22-month-old son, Isaac. Kelli hugged her little boy close. He was dressed in a yellow hospital gown, happily playing with the iPad Child Life had loaned him. Kelli and Dennis did their best to appear calm in front of their son, but inside they were terrified.

Isaac had stage 4 high-risk neuroblastoma. He’d already been through four months of chemotherapy and now Dr. John Waldhausen, a surgeon specializing in neuroblastoma cases, was going to remove a tumor the size of a navel orange from his abdomen.

“I had been so focused on managing Isaac’s treatment plan that it didn’t hit me until that morning that my son was about to be lying on an operating table,” remembered Kelli. “I just held him and tried not to cry.”

The day before Isaac’s surgery, the Williamses invited their family members and their church pastor into their home.

“We all circled around Isaac,” said Kelli. “Our pastor prayed over him, he prayed for Dr. Waldhausen, that his hands and his team would get out exactly what needed to come out, and nothing more.”

As they waited in the pre-op room, Kelli and Dennis realized it would be the last time they would see Isaac’s smooth, flawless belly. After surgery, he would have a large scar, stretching from hip to hip and up to his chest, a permanent reminder of his illness.

“I lifted up his shirt and tickled his stomach before he went in, knowing it would never look the same,” remembered Dennis. “It made me pretty sad.”

When a nurse came to get Isaac, Kelli reluctantly handed over her child.

“We’re going to take good care of him,” the nurse kindly reassured her.

Isaac happily waved goodbye to his mom and dad, and they kept up their smiles until he was out of sight. Then Kelli broke down, letting out all the tears she’d been holding back. Read full post »

On May 7, 2018, Whitney Stohr slumped to the ground in the corner of her son’s room in Seattle Children’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Her son Malachi, who was born with a severe form of spina bifida, had undergone a tracheostomy days before. When he woke up after the procedure, his pain was so intense his body went into shock.

That night, Stohr remembers hearing beeps and alarms blaring in their room. Malachi wasn’t getting enough oxygen and his heart rate was dropping. Providers rushed in to perform CPR.

“I just crumbled to the floor,” Stohr remembers. “I was scared he wasn’t going to make it.”

That’s when a provider from the Medically Complex Care team knelt beside Stohr.

“She looked me in the eye and said, ‘It’s okay Whitney. We got him. He’s stable. He’s going to be okay.’ She told me that night that I needed to be strong for Malachi, and I haven’t stopped yet.”

The Stohrs have come a long way since then, and while Stohr has feared for her son’s life countless times, Seattle Children’s workforce members have been like a second family during the most challenging moments. Read full post »

Eighteen months ago, Dr. Lynn Martin, an anesthesiologist and medical director of the ambulatory surgery center at Seattle Children’s, and his colleagues at the Seattle Children’s Bellevue Clinic and Surgery Center set out to reduce the use of opioids during outpatient pediatric surgeries, while maintaining or improving pain management and outcomes for patients. Ultimately, they accomplished much more by successfully ousting opioid use during surgeries.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drug overdose deaths continue to increase in the U.S. It is a problem Martin and his colleagues believe they can help address, which is what drove them to develop a novel initiative at Seattle Children’s to reduce opioids.

Martin and his colleagues completed their breakthrough quality improvement initiative to reduce opioid use and their findings were published in Anesthesia and Analgesia. Read full post »

Amani Jackson and her identical twin sister, Amira, possess a rare bond that began in their mother’s womb.

Up until the moment they were born, grasping on to one another, their bond remained unbroken.

It wasn’t until surgeons noticed one of them wasn’t quite like the other, that they needed to part ways.

“Although they were both premature, Amira came out healthy as can be,” said their mother, Stranje Pittman. “However, as soon as the doctor saw Amani, they knew something was wrong. Before I knew it, she was rushed out of the operating room and immediately taken to Seattle Children’s.”

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When Cassie Fannin and her husband arrived at her 19-week ultrasound, the newly married couple was excited to learn more about their child.  However, the first-time parents’ joy quickly turned to uncertainty when the ultrasound showed their baby’s stomach in her chest due to a life-threatening condition.

Fannin learned that her daughter, Summer, would be born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH). Summer had a hole in the left side of her diaphragm that allowed her stomach, intestines and a portion of her liver to slip through into her chest cavity. This prevented her left lung from developing normally.

“To say it was a shock is an understatement,” said Fannin. “We went from being ecstatic about finding out we were having a girl to absolutely devastated in a matter of seconds. I left that day a completely different person. My sadness slowly turned into anger and resentment as I thought, ‘Why us? Why our baby?’”

Doctors referred the family to Seattle Children’s Prenatal Diagnosis and Treatment Program since Fannin’s baby would need surgery after birth, if she survived. The couple met Dr. Kimberly Riehle, an attending surgeon at Seattle Children’s, when Fannin was about 22 weeks along.

“My husband and I were completely lost and overwhelmed,” said Fannin. “Dr. Riehle helped ease our troubled minds during a really uncertain time. My feelings of bitterness and sorrow slowly started to melt away as I came to terms with the diagnosis and the realization that we were no different than anyone else getting a life-changing diagnosis, and I just focused on my excitement to meet her.” Read full post »

Ruth Garcia, 17, received treatment from Seattle Children’s for her melanoma.

During seventh-grade gym class, Ruth Garcia remembers a friend pointing out a black mole she had on her left knee. Ruth didn’t think much about it until two years ago, when she began to feel pain in her knee and noticed that the mole had grown and changed colors to gray and red.

“That’s when I started to worry more,” said Ruth, now 17.

In spring 2016, Ruth’s mother took her to see her primary care provider near the family’s home in Walla Walla, Washington. They did a biopsy on the mole, and she was diagnosed with spitzoid melanoma. Ruth was referred to Seattle Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

A child born in the U.S. has about a one in 40 chance of developing melanoma during their lifetime. Seattle Children’s sees about six children a year who were either misclassified with melanoma or have spitzoid melanoma. The cause of spitzoid melanoma is unknown.

“I was surprised,” said Ruth. “I never thought something like that would happen to me.” Read full post »

Tristan, 9, recently underwent a three-stage nose reconstruction.

For most of the past year, 9-year-old Tristan Beck has been on a long, challenging journey toward nose reconstruction after a traumatic accident left him with a missing nose.

December 20, 2017 was a normal day of winter break for the Beck family. Tristan and his older sister were visiting their mother’s office to drop off food for a party. When they returned to the car, a dog was in the parking lot, showing no signs of aggression. However, when Tristan began to throw the dog a piece of food, it lunged at Tristan’s face and pulled him down. Tristan’s sister pulled him back, and the dog ran away.

All Tina Beck, Tristan’s mother, remembers is the blood on his face when his sister brought him back into her office.

“There was so much blood it was hard to see exactly what was wrong,” said Beck. “It was very hard for me to look at my son at first. My heart hurt and I was blaming myself for what had happened, but I wanted to be strong for him.”

The family called 911, and Tristan was transported to Seattle Children’s Emergency Department. Read full post »

In 2009, during Laurina Barker’s 20-week ultrasound, she and her husband Ryan received news that no expecting parents want to hear.

“The technician turned to me and said something looked different and that they would have my doctor call me,” said Barker.

A couple of days later, the Barkers would learn their baby had congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a rare birth defect where a baby’s diaphragm does not form completely. This leaves a hole between the abdomen and chest allowing their organs, most often their intestines and liver, to slip through the hole and up into the chest.

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When 4-year-old Sho Hansen entered the doors of Seattle Children’s Bellevue Clinic and Surgery Center to get his tonsils removed, he clung on tightly to his mother.

“After his name was called and we sat in the exam room, all he wanted to do was sit in my lap and not acknowledge anyone that came in to talk to us,” said his mother, Lisa Hansen. “Sho is shy and tends to get nervous around people he doesn’t know well.”

One of the staff members in line to help prepare Sho for his surgery was a nurse anesthetist named Anisa Manion.

“My role at the clinic is to administer anesthesia to patients to help them fall asleep before going into surgery,” said Manion. “We’re given a short period of time to get kids as comfortable as possible. The process can be very challenging — many kids are anxious and nervous, so the friendlier we make the environment for them, the easier it is for them.”

Manion has a special trick up her sleeve when it comes to calming kids down during the pre-surgery process.

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