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About Wally
Wally Spiers was born January of 1952, in Wellsville, Mo., in the worst blizzard of the season. His mother was unable to get to the hospital, and he was born in a local doctor's office. He attempted to come out sideways, and has been similarly confused since. He came to the News-Democrat in 1987, and started his column in 1990.Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009
| Comments (0) |Belleville family struggles with infant boy's medical issues
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closeBenjamin David Hubble didn't get the best start in life, what with his congenital diaphragmatic hernia, but he is fighting to come back.
The 6-week-old son of Dave and Kelly Hubble, of Belleville, was born Sept. 15 with most of his internal organs crowded up in his chest cavity, compressing his lungs and causing one to develop slowly.
He had corrective surgery at St. Louis Children's Hospital on Thursday to repair the hernia. His mom, Kelly, said the huge hole in his diaphragm had to be patched but doing so meant the organs that were crowded up had to be put back in a smaller space than they were used to. Everything wanted to crowd out of the belly incision. That means a couple of more surgeries this week to sew things shut.
Kelly writes about the family's ordeal in a blog at http://benjaminhubble.blogspot.com.
Kelly said Benjamin came out of the surgery well but is having some trouble with breathing issues involving his ventilator. That throws off many of his other bodily functions. Then there is the always difficult task of managing all of his medications.
The little guy is a fighter, Kelly said. He was on a heart-lung machine for a while, has had more transfusions than she could count, some bleeding in the brain and high blood pressure.
It has been an emotional roller-coaster ride for the family as the parents try to stay with their baby and handle emergencies while trying to keep life as normal as possible for their other two children, daughters Emma, 5, and Elsa, 16 months.
Kelly is a pharmacist and Dave, a self-employed owner of a Matco Tool business just getting established. The family has health insurance but it has a co-pay, which means they are running up huge medical bills.
To help out, friends and family have established the Benjamin D. Hubble Benefit Fund at Associated Bank, 217 W. Washington St., Millstadt, IL 62260.
There also are collection jars at the Millstadt IGA and Casey's and Gas Mart in Millstadt.
There will be a trivia night and silent auction fund raiser at 6 p.m., Nov. 14. The Catholic War Veterans are donating the use of their hall on Illinois 159.
Have a column idea? Call Wally at 239-2506 or 800-642-3878; or e-mail: wspiers@bnd.com
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