Family Profile
The Cole & Addison Cramer Family Home: Branson, MO (Taney County)
The evening of July 19, 2020,
I was admitted to Branson Cox for pre-eclampsia. I was scheduled to be induced on the 21st at 37 weeks, but during my treatment the doctors noticed that Ronan’s heart beat decelerated with each contraction. Ronan Atticus was born via emergency C-section at 2:17 am July 20th at 36 weeks and 6 days. When the nurses checked his blood sugar, it was so low the monitor wouldn’t read it, and they thought the monitor was broken. They checked three different machines before realizing that his blood sugar levels were just that low. Ronan was taken to the NICU at Cox South in Springfield that afternoon, while I remained in Branson to recover. Thankfully, I was able to join him and my husband, Cole, just a couple days later. My brother and I were born with a genetic condition called Hyperinsulinism, so there was some concern that Ronan had inherited it, but those fears were quelled when his hypoglycemic symptoms faded away after about two weeks. It was so hard to see my baby on a feeding tube with IVs and monitors hooked up to him for so long, and it seemed like every time we made one step of progress, we took two steps backward. Even after his PICC line IV was removed, we had to remain in the NICU for another few weeks while Ronan learned to eat by mouth and start gaining enough weight. The Ronald McDonald House was an enormous comfort throughout the process. We live about 50 minutes away from the NICU, so driving back and forth every day would have been so difficult and expensive. RMHC provided us with a comfortable place to sleep, a place to keep our extra things that didn’t fit in the hospital room, a place to shower, and a number of delicious meals. We left the hospital with Ronan the day he turned a month old. That was the longest month of my life, but I am immensely grateful to RMHC for making that month a little easier to get through. The Ronald McDonald Houses have had an enormous impact on my life, not only because they helped my family when my son was hospitalized, but also because my family had a place to go when my brother was born and when my sister was born 8 years later. I have had the privilege of staying in a Ronald McDonald House three separate times now, each for several weeks. Thank you, RMHC, for providing a “home-away-from-home’ for my loved ones and myself time and time again. I will always be thankful.
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