MOM’S LITTLE MIRACLE
NICU specialists and tenacious little boy show ‘anything can happen’
Eighteen-month-old Luke Hornick plays in the arms of his mother Katie at their East Windsor home Friday. Luke was born severely premature, weighing only a pound, and given little chance to survive. His parents say now he’s the ‘happiest baby on earth.’
Luke Hornick, whose parents call him the happiest baby on earth, is proof that no matter how grim the outlook, great things can happen.
“Whether you’re religious or not, miracles do happen,” mom Katie Hornick said Friday, as she and husband Todd watched Luke playing joyfully with his toys on their living room floor — a scenario that vividly contrasts to May 23, 2015, the day Luke was born at 25 weeks, three days, and weighing exactly one pound — one-seventh the average birth weight.
He was so small and premature that the specialists at London Health Sciences Centre didn’t think he would make it, giving a 30 to 40 per cent chance, according to Katie. Even if he did survive, the Hornicks were told he’d be very unhealthy and at high risk for such devastating conditions as cerebral palsy, epilepsy and developmental disability.
“He didn’t even look real,” said Todd, showing one of the tiny micro-preemie diapers the nurses used on Luke when he was incubated, intubated (with a breathing tube) and hooked into multiple tubes and wires in London’s neonatal intensive care unit. The NICU takes the newborns who are even too premature for Windsor’s modified Level 3 NICU, which takes babies aged 26 weeks and above. Luke spent 160 days in the London NICU, with his parents staying at the nearby Ronald McDonald House so they could be by his side.
“It was absolutely overwhelming,” said Katie.
Several times they’d field “scary calls” in the middle of the night from NICU staff, who told them that’s Luke’s condition was so dire they needed to run to the hospital. Two newborns in nearby cribs, who appeared healthier, had died.
The day after he was born, his heart stopped, prompting medical staff to perform CPR to help bring him back. He had brain bleeds on both sides of his head in his first month. He coped with infections, had more than 10 blood transfusions and a hole in his heart that is almost completely closed now. An eye disease common among preemies called retinopathy of prematurity developed, requiring injections of medication directly into his eyes to save his sight. He still bears the scar from an intravenous burn on his forehead, caused by prolonged use of a tube feeding medication into his tiny body. And he was kept on oxygen for 15 months, long after he left the NICU and went home.
When Katie and Todd left the NICU after 160 days, the doctors were crying, said Katie. “You never hear a doctor use the word ‘miracle’ but they did with him.”
Luke wears glasses as a result of his brush with the eye disease, and as he approaches two years, he’s smaller (about 20 pounds) than average and hasn’t come close to walking. But he’s advancing. He butt-scoots to move around the hardwood floor, or pulls himself on his belly. He’s forming words, starting with “momma” and “dada.”
“He’s about a year behind, but (doctors) haven’t mentioned anything about developmental disability because he is reaching milestones — they’re just delayed,” said Katie, a child and youth worker at the Regional Children’s Centre.
His parents call him the happiest baby on earth.
“He’s definitely a fighter,” his dad said. “When he goes for shots he cries for a second and he’s done. He’s been picked so much.”
The parents are grateful they could take advantage of a recent change to employment insurance that provides extra benefits to parents of critically ill children. Katie was able to stay off work for about 18 months.
Todd went back to his Transit Windsor job after 36 weeks, driving to London on weekends to be by Luke’s side. They usually couldn’t hold him because he was intubated, but they read books to him every day.
They said co-workers at both their workplaces pitched in with fundraisers to help them out. With both of them now back to work, and wanting to avoid putting Luke in daycare because of the risk of infections, they rely on grandparents to watch him. Luke’s sister Alyssa, 10, also helps.
Katie went to the London Health Sciences Centre to give birth by caesarian because she was diagnosed at 22 weeks with severe preeclampsia, a condition involving high blood pressure and protein in the urine.
The 42-bed NICU receives “the tiniest babies from across Southwestern Ontario for care,” according to the London hospital, treating more than 700 severely ill and preemie babies annually.
Katie contacted the Star about Luke’s success story after reading about the plight of seven-monthold Madalayna Ducharme, who recently received a stem cell transplant from her brother Henrik with the hope of halting the progress of a terrible and potentially fatal disease called malignant infantile osteopetrosis.
The rare genetic disorder causes bones to get thicker and more dense, leading to loss of sight and hearing and eventually death.
Katie said she realizes the Ducharme family — currently watching over Madalayna at Sick Kids in Toronto — has a long and difficult road, but she wanted to tell Luke’s story to show there’s hope.
“Your news can be grim,” she said, “but anything can happen.”
He’s definitely a fighter. When he goes for shots he cries for a second and he’s done. He’s been picked so much.