Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Growing Up Grady
Springdale family receives care, support closer to home at ACH Clinic in Lowell
Grady Welch was born a healthy baby boy, but on Oct. 26, 2009, his life changed forever. That night, twoyear-old Grady had his first grand mal seizure. Soon, he was having up to 20 seizures a day.
Overnight, he went from being a typical, healthy toddler to being a medically fragile mystery. An EEG confirmed seizure activity, and an MRI showed he had an abnormal brain structure. But the underlying reason for his seizures was still a mystery.
On March 17, 2010, Grady began seizing. He also had a high fever and trouble breathing. An Angel One helihelicopter flew him to Arkansas ChildrenChildren’s Hospital, where he stayed for two weeks while specialists ran tests and monitored him for seizure zurseizure activity.
“The doctors discovered he had a swallowing disorder that was causing him to aspirate on all consistencies of food,” recalls his mother, Andrea Welch. “They had to put a feeding tube in place, which was so hard because five months prior, he was a healthy boy.”
After several rounds of testing, the genetics team at ACH diagnosed Grady with LLissencephaly, a small gene defectdef that causes developmentaltlddelaysl and a host of other medical problems. He was 3½ years old.
In 2013, a two-hour seizure prompted another ride on Angel One. He stayed at ACH for three weeks while physicians monitored his breathing and ultimately prescribed respiratory therapy and oxygen four to five times a day. Just last February, Grady was back at ACH in respiratory distress. This time, he had surgery to place a tracheal tube to help him breathe. He was out of school for 10 weeks.
Teena Cobb, the registered nurse who works at Shaw Elementary School in Springdale, helps manage Grady’s care, monitoring his breathing through a CPAP, pulse oximeter, nebulizer and suction machine. She also handles multiple feedings through his feeding pump and is there at his side every time he has a seizure.
Over the years, Welch has come to rely on a variety of specialists for help in managing Grady’s condition. All told, Grady visited eight different clinics at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital campus in Little Rock, which meant a lot of time off work for Welch.
Thanks to donors, however, all of Grady’s specialists are closer to home with the ACH Clinic in Lowell. It’s made a world of difference for Welch.
“[The staff at the clinic] is our family,” she says. “They treat Grady just like one of their own children. Without the clinic, we would be missing a majority of our support system.
“Many times, we get assistance the same day we call. Other times, we have the ability to see several physicians and get questions answered by many physicians at one appointment.
“[The clinic] has changed our lives,” Welch said. “It saves time, money, wear on Grady and time off work. Most of all, it helps keep our family together.”