BACK FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH AN INFANT’S STRUGGLE WITH A DEVASTATING DISEASE Gabriela Hernandez arrived at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital in critical condition. She was only three days old and suffering from necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a devastating disease that affects the wall of the intestine, ultimately destroying it. This disease is the second leading cause of death in premature babies and the most common gastrointestinal disease of premature newborns. She desperately needed emergency surgery, having NEC, pneumonia and an E. coli infection within her abdomen. Andrei Radulescu, MD, pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital, met Gabriela’s parents at the hospital entrance. He was honest with them about the critical nature of her condition, explaining that while she would definitely die without the surgery, she might still die during or after surgery. “Right before he took her into surgery, Dr. Radulescu asked me if I was okay,” Monique said. “I told him I was scared and stressing. He responded, ‘don’t do that, that’s my job now.’ As a mother, I can’t describe how much that meant to me.
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Creating a Masterpiece | 2019 Annual Report
I was losing my baby, but yet, I knew he would take care of her.”
further repair her intestines, she’s now at home with her family.
Gabriela made it through the surgery, though much of her large and small intestines had been removed. Yet, her recovery was only the beginning. She continued needing transfusions — platelet, blood and plasma. She was on morphine for the high pain she was experiencing. She had a colostomy placed during the surgery due to the intestine loss. She couldn’t breathe on her own. Gabriela had never even been held by her mother or father. She spent almost three months in the NICU.
“It’s incredible to see how far she’s come,” Monique said. “I could never thank the hospital staff and Dr. Radulescu enough — I swear he’s an angel. The front desk staff, transport staff, nurses, child life specialists, surgeons — they brought my daughter back from the brink of death.”
One day, when Gabriela’s parents went to visit her, she was unrecognizable. “She looked like a baby again, instead of this thing on death’s doorstep,” Monique said. “She was breathing on her own without a respirator, and that was the moment I finally knew she would be okay.” Today, Gabriela is strong, alert and healthy. While she will eventually need more surgeries to reverse the colostomy and
Radulescu has operated on hundreds of kids with NEC. He has studied the disease for the past 14 years, making it the focus of his life. Radulescu, with the support of Children’s Hospital, conducts extensive basic science research on NEC to find a cure. He is making strides in developing a prevention method for the devastating disease. “My goal is to never operate on a child with NEC again,” Radulescu said. “For every patient that survives NEC, one dies. I will remember those kids forever. Gabriela was one of the miracle ones.”
