Lindy Barker
Lindy Barker's birth in January 2004 was uneventful. But three and a half months later, she developed a serious case of pneumonia that resulted in a 10-day stay at Children's Mercy.
While there, a routine screening diagnosed a heart murmur. When the murmur didn't go away on its own, which often happens, Dr. Stephen Kaine correctly suspected Lindy might have a not-too-unusual condition that causes abnormally narrow blood vessels. He recommended a catheterization procedure to locate and repair the narrowed arteries.
And that's what Lindy was admitted for on March 28, 2006. That is, until she was anesthetized and her blood pressure dropped to almost zero. Code blue.
Lindy's parents,
Laura McKnight and Clay Barker were told that to save Lindy's life, she would have to be placed on an extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation heart-lung machine for newborns. The next day, with Lindy on the ECMO machine, doctors were able to catheterize and balloon 42 narrowed lung arteries - and to discover a second problem. The artery bringing blood to the right side of Lindy's heart had a substantial blockage. Surgery on her heart at the time was deemed too risky. Lindy came off the machine chemically paralyzed and heavily sedated. Over the next six days, Lindy continued to suffer catastrophic loss of blood pressure and, once again, Laura and Clay were told that Lindy may not recover.
| "Now, I honestly feel there's not enough I can do to give back what Children's Mercy has given us." |
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"It's not that they gave up hope," says Clay, "but they wanted us to realize how grave her condition was. That we might have to consider the possibility of turning off the respirator."
Cardiovascular surgeon Gary Lofland, MD decided that repairing Lindy's 1.4 millimeter wide heart artery, despite the risks, was Lindy's best chance of survival. The surgery went well. Two days later, off the paralyzing drugs, she was partially awake. Ten days later, she went home.
"Without intervention," says Clay, "Lindy would probably have died of sudden death in the next few months."
"Unquestionably, the technical proficiency of the staff at Children's Mercy is why Lindy is here today," says Laura. "Now, I honestly feel there's not enough I can do to give back what Children's Mercy has given us."
What McKnight and Barker have done is make Children's Mercy the beneficiary of their retirement plans in their donor advised fund at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, where Knight is president and CEO.
"I believe there's no limit to quality. There are probably other world-renowned physicians and researchers like Dr. Lofland that Children's Mercy would like to recruit. There are other pieces of equipment, like the machine that kept Lindy alive, they would like to acquire. There are few things in Kansas City that really set us apart in terms of quality of life, and Children's Mercy Hospital is one of them."