LIFE on the Line To save a baby, a medical team of 40 choreographs a complex procedure BY DAVE SCHEIBER
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hen Diana McDowell was wheeled toward the Tampa General Hospital operating room to deliver her baby boy on November 23, 2020, she looked up from her gurney to see a sight she never expected: doctors and nurses in scrubs lining the hallway applauding as she came into view. McDowell felt a rush of emotion and gratitude. In that moment, the fear and uncertainty weighing heavily on her mind faded—as she prepared for a complex, highly specialized surgery to deliver her baby, whose airway was completely displaced by the development of an abnormal fluid-filled sac-like structure in his neck. Called a cystic hygroma, the growth would impair the baby’s ability to breathe as soon as he was born. She knew there were no guarantees that she would see her infant son alive
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