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Mother, daughter fight against all odds
Published July 6, 2008
Tara Way inched her wheelchair closer to her infant daughter’s incubator.
The 24-year-old mother eased her left foot off the stirrup of the chair, then grabbed her right foot with her left hand and pushed it onto the floor.
Nurses at the Galveston University of Texas Medical Branch neonatal unit went about their business, tending to a dozen premature babies. Tara’s husband, Matt, stood two steps away, talking to the baby’s doctor.
Tara, frail but determined, placed her left hand on the isolette. With a tug on the crib stand, she stood.
“Tara!,” exclaimed her mother-in-law, Gay Way, tears brimming her eyes. “She just stood up ...”
Only 21 days after a pair of brain surgeries which doctors said could leave the Sweeny woman paralyzed for at least six months, without speech for longer, and with possible permanent memory loss, Tara Way had defied very long odds.
A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT
She had been working at Angleton’s Gulf Coast Auto Park on May 29 when she suffered a massive stroke. A pregnancy-related medical condition called eclampsia had caused the stroke, which paralyzed her right side.
That same day, after doctors performed brain surgery on Tara to remove a life-threatening blood clot, Myla Faith Way was born by Cesarean section. She had been growing inside her mother for only 26 weeks and weighed just 1 pound, 13 ounces.
Doctors gave the baby about a 50 percent chance of survival while Tara’s chances, based on stroke survival of someone her age, were at 75 percent or higher. She would likely suffer paralysis and speech loss for at least six months with possible lifetime problems, said Aaron Mohanty, assistant professor of neurosurgery at UTMB.
It was just three weeks later, while wrapping up a twice-weekly visit with their daughter at UTMB, that Tara decided to stand. She still was often unable to form simple words or remember the name of a word. But that day she wasn’t ready to return to Sweeny and leave her baby for the three days until she would visit again.
At birth, Myla wasn’t breathing. In a few days, she’d lost 5 ounces. By the time her mother stood at her crib for the first time, Myla still was covered in a maze of tubes.
Tara focused only on her child, who had gained 9 ounces since birth but still weighed slightly more than a quart of milk.
Her standing surprised everyone.
“You OK?,” Matt asked, instantly at his wife’s side, his arm encircling her waist.
Tara nodded slightly.
“Oh, my ...” nurses exclaimed, one placing her hand to her mouth.
The large neonatal room — filled a heartbeat earlier with the sounds of hospital shoes and hushed conversation — was silent except for mechanical clicks and a few stifled tears. Myla’s doctor, Karen Shattuck, nurse Karen Garcia, Gay and Jim Way watched in amazement.
After a minute-long, almost reverent pause, Garcia broke the silence.
“They do that,” Garcia said of the UTMB nursing staff. “The nurses don’t leave because they have something to do. They leave to go cry. Every time I see Tara, it makes me cry. It’s amazing. She’s awesome.”
Tara sat back in the wheelchair, a smile tugging at the left side of her youthful face.
Using great effort not unlike someone just learning to speak, Tara looked up at her husband after seeing Myla one more time.
“She’s ...
“Beautiful.”
SPEAKING OF FAITH
Tara’s rapid recovery is part medicine, part faith, Shattuck said.
“She’s an amazing young lady,” the doctor said. “Personally, I think prayer makes a huge difference. And there’s scientific research that suggests it has a positive effect when a family has religious faith. They can better handle the ups and downs.”
Faith is where Matt placed his wife and child May 29.
“There are two miracles sitting here,” Matt said as Tara smiled. “God is awesome.”
Miracles mixed with determination have taken Tara a long way, said her sister-in-law, Alisha Way, who is a speech therapist.
Both college students one semester away from kinesiology degrees at the University of Houston, Matt and Tara have no medical insurance and only part-time jobs.
Medicaid allowed a 10-day hospital stay for Tara but Myla, still making steady progress one month after birth, will be in the neonatal unit until at least mid-August, Garcia said. Matt, his sister-in-law and brother, Jeremy have taken over physical therapy to rehabilitate Tara. Each day, the new mother is able to move her right side a little more.
Less than a month after the stroke, Tara’s speech had improved from one word and a long pause to four to five words in a row. Her vocabulary — which three weeks ago consisted of “No” and “No-ee” also is expanding.
“She gets a little frustrated with herself sometimes,” Alisha Way said as the family worked with Tara last week. “She’s making amazing progress, considering she was without speech less than a month ago. She knows what she wants to say. She just can’t get it to come out.”
HOME REMEDY
During physical therapy in the living room of Alisha and Jeremy Way’s rural home southeast of Sweeny, Tara stumbled a little as she stood, a tiny squeal of panic escaping her lips.
Alisha Way was there.
“I’ve got you,” she assured the younger woman. “I’m not going to let you fall, sister.”
A few minutes later, Tara grimaced while bending her knees, laying on a thin black mat placed on the hardwood floor. She’s gaining range of motion but still cannot walk on her own. She has trouble forcing her right hamstring to respond, said Jeremy Way, a paramedic and firefighter.
He expresses frustration at a medical system that would leave a young woman without proper care.
“She’s improved by leaps and bounds, and it’s because of faith in the Lord,” Jeremy Way said. “Matt didn’t place his faith in doctors. He placed it on God.”
The family works first on Tara’s right arm, wrist, hand and thumb before moving to her legs. It takes considerable effort, but she can now move her right arm and leg.
Wearing a white “Support our Troops” T-shirt and camouflage pants, Tara drew a sharp gasp while lying on her stomach and rolling her right leg off the mat.
Breath held, eyes tightly closed and her teeth clenched in concentration and pain, the former Needville High School basketball player groaned as she reached the last of a pair of 15-lift sets of leg lifts.
“She gives 110 percent in everything she does,” Alisha Way said. “She’s working very hard.”
There are reasons Matt and Tara are so dedicated to twice-daily rehabilitation. Matt’s is to get his wife back to health. Hers is a little more involved.
“I want to finish ...” she said, stopping when words wouldn’t come.
“My goal is when I was ...”
Matt and Alisha offered encouragement.
“I want to be there every day ... ,” Tara said of the hospital where her daughter is a 90-minute drive away.
Tara furrowed her brow in frustration.
“You’re doing fine,” Matt said gently.
“She was beautiful,” Tara said of Myla as a photo collage of the infant showed on Jeremy Way’s large-screen television.
“I want to be ready when ...
“... When Myla comes home.”
John Lowman is a reporter for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 849-8581.
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DONATE
An account is set up at Texas Dow Employees Credit Union. To donate, call the Lake Jackson branch at (979)297-1154 and ask about the Tara and Myla Way benefit account.
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