Atlas and Annie Road to Recovery

Right now, just like almost every day over the previous two months, I’m sitting at the hospital next to the greatest loves of my life. Annie and I are currently in the NICU with our Micro-Preemie son Atlas who is recovering from his third abdominal surgery. Atlas is currently 52 days old and 32 weeks gestation. It’s been 6 weeks since Atlas was born into Neonatal Intensive Care, and if we’re lucky, he’ll be out of here just after New Year’s…

 

I’m creating this fundraiser for several reasons, first because so many of you have reached out asking how you can help our family, and second because our little family is in need of help. Atlas requires about four months of surgeries and intensive care as he continues to develop and grow to full-term. We’re anticipating at least one year of very carefully monitored follow-up care after we are able to bring Atlas home. Due to health complications Annie has become legally blind, can no longer drive and is on a rigorous road to recovery herself. Our current life situation has rendered us unable to work as I’ve become the primary caregiver for both Annie and Atlas. I’ve cashed out crypto, we’ve compiled our savings and with the next six months (at least) looking like it will be a lot of the same, then our burn rate will render us unsustainable before Atlas is able to leave the NICU.

 

We are raising funds to help with medical bills associated with the insured and uninsured treatments that both Annie and Atlas receive. General support to help cover travel expenses, which include, a 3 hour round-trip daily drive to be at the hospital the occasional hotel stay when we need to be near the hospital for days at a time. Support with prescription medication costs associated with diabetes, hypertension, kidney failure and preventative care which is nearing a thousand dollars monthly. Support with our two dogs, as we frequently have them in daycare due to our inability to give them the attention and exercise they need. We are doing our best to minimize all costs, but in general your support will help us cover basic utilities, insurance premiums, medications, hospital stays, doctor visits, food and any surprises along the way.

 

We have set a goal to be self sufficient in 6 months together with our son in our home here in Georgia, hopefully without half a million dollars in debt. We are asking for financial support from anyone who feels that they would like to contribute in any way to our families continued journey. Many have called Atlas "The Million Dollar Baby" and it's seemingly true. Even with the insurance coverages, Annie and Atlas' insured out of pocket maximums are each $40,000/yr and we’ll still be in the hospital in 2022 which means it will start back over and max yet again. As we focus solely on the healthy longevity of our family, we will do everything it takes to reach the most desirable outcome, and as soon as able, self-sufficiency will be reached. Our hope is that we can relieve some of the outside stresses of financial stability until we are able to get Atlas home and ensure a safe structured routine that allows for our optimal growth.

 

We will do our best to keep everyone updated as the journey continues. If you haven't already, you can follow Atlas, Annie and myself on instagram for journey updates outside of this platform.

 

We truly feel all the love in the world and hope we can continue that outpour of love to many more.

 

Sincerely,

Atlas, Annie and Jake

@atlasbreiter

@annebreiter

@jakeburke

For a more thorough explanation of our journey, feel free to read below.

 

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To explain how we got here, we’ll need to back the story up a bit…

 

 

On January 4th, while quarantined on an island in the Grenadines for work, Annie learned of the death of her best friend. Its a miracle I was able to be there while she was isolated from the world and grieving the loss of a loved. 4 weeks later, still on the island, we learn that Annie is pregnant. Another miracle. (This is where the name “Atlas” was given to us.) At 6 weeks pregnant we landed back in Los Angeles, saw her doctor, got an ultra sound, heartbeat. At 8 weeks she miscarried, DNC one week later. The miscarriage was devastating but it forced Annie to see new doctors who now determined the cause of her miscarriage was likely due to health complications related to her type 1 diabetes, a disease Annie was diagnosed with at age 13 and has struggled to accept and manage ever since. Most of you who know Annie well are probably surprised to hear that she’s a Type 1 Diabetic, as she’s gone to great lengths to hide her disease. Like I mentioned before, the miscarriage was devastating but a blessing in hindsight. It put things into perspective for us. Our new primary focus became health so one day Annie could be healthy enough to carry a child and we could start our family. In a short span of only two months we had realized the majority of our baseline health goals without even realizing it. We were calculated and focused and determined, however Annie began to get really sick and was vomiting constantly and nauseous and it got so bad that we took her too the hospital where they revealed that she was healthy and all her bloodwork looked incredible and she was 7 weeks pregnant.

 

 

We were riddled with anxiety but extremely excited and hopeful and to our surprise we left every appointment and ultrasound with gold stars. Our boy Atlas was doing great and so was mom, for almost six months… until she wasn’t anymore. At 20 weeks pregnant Annie started swelling. Most would consider that early in the pregnancy but because her blood pressure wasn’t too high at that point, we just wrote it off as a pregnancy thing because Atlas was shining bright and growing as expected or a little faster. By 22 weeks pregnant the swelling was a lot more severe, Annie lost her appetite, she was extremely fatigued and started feeling wheezy. Again, all things that could be “normal pregnancy symptoms”, however we were anxious to get back to her doctors and shine light on the situation.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, August 21st, we were in Los Angeles celebrating Atlas at our baby shower. On Monday, August 23rd Annie is to fly to Atlanta while my dad and I simultaneously begin the cross-country drive in a moving truck. Annie returned to Georgia to relax and prepare to move into our new home, before seeing the high-risk doctor on Wednesday the 25th, however on the morning of the appointment, everything felt a lot more severe. So much so that she immediately went to see her OB. Annie’s blood pressure was through the roof and her lungs didn’t sound great so she was sent straight to the hospital where she was immediately admitted. She was only there a few hours before doctors came in, diagnosed her with severe preeclampsia and advised her to have an emergency C-Section. At this point Atlas was only 24 weeks 0 days and delivering this early and under these conditions was a frightening plan. Against the recommendations of high risk pregnancy doctors, Ob’s and kidney doctors, Annie decided to remain pregnant for as long as possible at the expense of her own body and health so she could give Atlas as much time as possible in utero to grow.

 

 

 

Six days, countless blood tests and doctor exams later it was determined that Annie could not wait a moment longer and at 24 weeks and 6 days little Atlas came into this world. Atlas’ story begins here.

 

 

On the morning of August 31st, at 1:35pm Eastern, we welcomed Atlas to our family.

 

 

 

 

 

Weighing 840g and 30cm at 24w/6d we welcomed our micro-preemie.

 

 

Upon birth, Atlas was diagnosed with several conditions:

- Extreme prematurity (24 weeks)

- RDS (Respiratory Distress Syndrome)

- Neonatal Sepsis

- Apnea of prematurity

- Syndrome of Infant of a Diabetic Mother

- Hyperbilirubinemia

- Azotemia

- Pneumothorax of newborn

- PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosis)

- Metabolic Acidosis

- Anemia

- Low Blood Pressure

- Neonatal Pulmonary Hemorrhage

- Disseminated Coagulation of a Newborn

- Perinatal Pneumomediastinum

- Transient Neonatal Thrombocytopenia

And

- Hernia

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the following two weeks, Atlas was in the most severe section of the NICU at Northeast Georgia Medical Center while Annie was two floors above fighting to recover as well. During this time, Atlas suffered many complications, collapsed lungs, fluid around his heart and lungs, multiple infections, spinal taps, multiple blood transfusions and ultimately a distension in his belly that nearly took his life. Quite literally as Annie and I sat one night in Atlas’ room, his team of nurses experienced “an emergency respiratory event” that required the attention of everyone on the floor, we held each other’s hand and prayed and cried and prayed and sat in awe as they worked to keep him breathing. Ultimately we were pulled aside and given some form of explanation of what was happening, but ended the conversation not knowing whether or not we’d ever be able to hold our son. The resilience that Atlas continues to show is remarkable. He made it through that night and the next few days he was under close observation. We were optimistic that he had the hardest phases behind him, but that all changed just 3 days later.

 

 

NICU life is challenging. I like to describe it as "The best day of your life followed immediately by the worst day of your life and overnight you have no choice but to gain hope for the future." and somehow that process repeats itself almost daily. Atlas has seen a lot of challenges since in Neonatal Intensive Care, and he's truly been remarkable to experience throughout. All of his challenges have been life-threatening and yet he fights so hard for life every time.

 

 

The distension in his belly continued to grow and it became clear that something was wrong and the questions weren’t going to be answered at the hospital we were admitted, so Atlas was sent to The Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Egleston, where the surgical team could evaluate his situation. His new team decided to perform an exploratory laparotomy to determine the root cause of his belly problem. X-Rays showed that there was a blockage in his intestine as well as a buildup of gas and other materials, so the plan was to clear that and get that system working once and for all.

 

 

 

The surgery didn’t necessarily go as expected however. After opening Atlas’ belly (mind you, he’s 1lb 7oz total weight at this point) they discovered that his bowel hadn’t formed all together. So all the feeding that had been done up to this point was putting so much pressure on his bowel that it actually ruptured his bowel. Atlas’ body consciously redirected its new cells to build a “cocoon-like” protective wall around the area in order to protect the waste from destroying other systems in his body. Truly miraculous. So after clearly identifying the problem areas the surgeons started operating toward a solution. The new solution was to remove the critically damaged tissue and section it into organs that might work if put back together. This requires a several day rest period, and during that time includes leaving his organs in a “silo” while his belly remains opened in order to determine which tissue shows signs they would live and which would not and need removal. After this evaluation, they could begin surgery number two.

 

 

 

Three days later they initiated surgery number two, their intentions were to sew the three remaining sections of intestine together, ultimately connecting Atlas from esophagus to rectum as one complete system without having to colostomize him in the process. The surgeon that operated on Atlas connected his organs back together, removed some of Atlas’ colon due to damage created from the previous surgery and went to finish the operation but realized that Atlas was so swollen that putting his organs back inside his little body was causing his little heart and lungs to collapse when trying to close him back up. They ultimately had no choice but to complete the surgery, leave him open and plan for a third surgery after they drain fluid from his little body to make room for the newly reconnected organs.

 

 

 

Throughout this whole period, we feared that multiple surgeries and multiple rounds of anesthesia and weeks on morphine and doses of ketamine and the myriad anesthetics he’s ingesting would be damaging to his brain development. With each time he goes under, the risk level increases. Unfortunately there was no choice other than completing the third surgery, and quickly, as his risk for infection increases the longer he remains open.

 

 

Surgery number three was yet another walk down to the O.R. another transfer from incubator to transport incubator, another face-to-face with anesthesia and another “we love you, we’ll be waiting on the other side for you Atlas.” And then wait for an update. Luckily this third operation went quickly and he didn’t lose too much blood and he was back in his room wearing 12 massive Frankenstein sutures and out like a light. Now we wait for the anesthesia to wear off, and start to hit several milestones over the next few weeks:

 

 

MILESTONES

1. Ween off of the Morphine.

3. 3. Reduce swelling.

4. Introduce Breastmilk.

5. Remove Stitches.

6. Rest, Recover and Grow.

 

 

 

 

 

All signs point to a positive recovery. Today Atlas has now weened off of morphine, swelling has reduced, stitches have been removed and we now re-introduce the breastmilk. Unfortunately it’s not abnormal for a new challenge to pop up at any time while preemies grow toward their due date, and with Atlas we now are facing challenges surrounding his heart. He is having Bradycardia or “Brady” events, approximately one per hour or 20-24 over the course of any 24hr period. This has been going on for a week now and we’re still chasing the cause, however, it could be due to many things including his extreme prematurity, an infection he’s fighting, or maybe him not having the ability to coordinate all of his bodily functions throughout the processes of eating. Not too sure yet, although we do know that Atlas is the cutest kid in the unit, one of the most miraculous cases of recovery around, and the greatest warrior that Annie and I have ever known.