Saved by a Mother's Touch

It was a warm spring Wednesday evening at our Marlton, New Jersey home. Keeley, my precocious 5-year-old daughter was getting ready for bed. She came to me after brushing her teeth and told me that her eye hurt.

I’m not a doctor. My wife Tara, a veterinarian, was working late at Evesham Vet Clinic. I looked at Keeley’s eye, kissed her forehead and assured her she would feel better in the morning.

A few hours later, Keeley woke us up crying from her room. Tara, who had returned from work around midnight, got up to check on Keeley, as she did with all four of our children whenever there was a nighttime issue.

This time was different. Tara returned to our bedroom and said sternly, “You need to get up.”

Seconds later, I sat on the corner of Keeley’s bed and looked into the eyes of my only daughter. “I see two of you, daddy,” she said in a sleepy voice.

“Give me a high five,” I said, holding up my hand. Keeley swung forward and totally missed my hand.

Within 20 minutes I drove us to an emergency room in Voorhees, New Jersey. A young doctor examined Keeley from head to toe as he performed several tests. In addition to Keeley’s vision being off, she was having trouble taking deep breaths. Also, she claimed her arms and legs felt heavy.

After 30 minutes of examining Keeley, the doctor took us aside and said, “I don’t want you to cry in front of her, but all signs are leading towards a tumor. We’re going to take a CAT scan, and in an hour we’ll know for sure.

That was the longest hour of my life. Tara was a rock. I was not. I found the nearest bathroom down the hallway, locked the door behind me and tried to wash the tears from my face.

Keeley was bright, athletic, and simply the sweetest little girl. She had a wonderful heart and truly cared about everyone around her. She loved animals and sports. She took a strong interest in my beloved Yankees and sat with me through long ballgames, cheering when I cheered. She was a light and an inspiration for me, and I adored her. I often said that Keeley was made up of all the best parts of Tara and me, and ONLY the best parts.

The doctor found us in the waiting room after the scan. He saw I was visibly shaken and put his hand on my shoulder. “I have some good news and bad news,” he started. “We could not find a tumor, but Keeley is getting worse. Her body is shutting down and we don’t know why. I feel at this point she should be transferred to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she will be better cared for.”

It took a couple of hours to get the release paperwork and have Keeley transferred by ambulance across the Ben Franklin Bridge into Center City, Philadelphia. I followed by closely in our minivan as Tara rode in the ambulance with Keeley.

We were greeted by a team of 10 doctors. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is a teaching hospital, so it’s not uncommon to have a team of doctor’s working on patients. That team worked on Keeley from head to toe for an hour. When they were done, another team of 10 doctors worked on Keeley for an hour.

21 doctors had looked at Keeley over the next few hours. In this time, Keeley’s breathing ?became labored. She had numbness in her limbs. Her vision had worsened, and she cocked her head to look at us. “Don’t be sad, daddy. I’ll be okay,” she said.

Keeley was far from okay though. After the second round of tests, Keeley said she needed to use the bathroom, however, when she tried, she could no longer stand. She asked if I could carry her to the bathroom. I felt the eyes of the doctors on us as I carried Keeley through the crowded hallway. My heart sank as I lifted my little girl, and I wondered if this action would somehow become routine. What if she doesn’t get better?

When I returned with Keeley, the doctor in charge asked to meet with us. He said with confidence, “We believe Keeley has Guillain-Barre Syndrome. It’s a neurological blood disease that affects the central nervous system. We believe that after an immediate spinal tap and transfusion, and after months of painful rehabilitation, we can get Keeley close to where she was, but she will never be the same.”

His words “never the same” echoed in my head as he looked for a response. My eyes found Tara’s, and she nodded approval for the procedures to begin. Tara went back into the room with Keeley and tried to comfort her as the doctor plunged a large needle into her spine. Keeley screamed out in pain, and the sounds made my stomach turn again.

I found a spot in the hallway on the floor and leaned up against a wall with my head in my hands, and I started to pray -- something I had not done in some time. I didn’t just pray for Keeley to be okay. I prayed for everything to back to the way it was. I prayed for her to be able to grow up and do all the things that we dreamed for her. I prayed for her to grow into the woman we knew she would be – a confident and intelligent giver who would make a difference in the lives she touched.

In return, I asked God to take years off my own life. I promised to be a better father and husband. I promised to volunteer more and give back to others.

When I finished my prayer, I walked into Keeley’s room. Almost immediately, Tara said to me, “I feel something, can you see what it is?”

I went around to the other side of the bed and looked where Tara was pointing. Just above Keeley’s left ear embedded in her scalp was an engorged tick. I yelled, “It’s a tick! It’s a tick!!” And within 15 seconds, the room was flooded with doctors and nurses. There must have been 20 medical professionals around Keeley’s bed.

The doctor in charge announced, “Have the veterinarian remove it. She has more experience with ticks than any of us.”

With that, a nurse handed Tara a tweezers and test tube. Tara made her way around to my side of the bed and extracted the tick (and a little piece of scalp) as she was careful to get the entire parasite. She put the tick in the test tube and for some reason handed it to me. I placed my finger over the open end and started shaking the tube violently as if to kill it or punish it. The doctors started yelling, “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing? We need to test that thing!”

I thought the damage had been done. I thought that this little parasite had ruined my daughter’s life. Handing the tube to a doctor, I hugged Tara with the relief that we at least found the cause of the illness. I still felt the damage was permanent until a nurse returned five minutes later with a stack of printouts -- cases just like Keeley’s. All of the girls in the reports were young with long hair. All had something called Tick Paralysis. The cases were mainly from Georgia and Washington State. They involved a pregnant female tick attaching itself to a person who was 50 lbs. or less. The tick releases toxins into the blood which shutdown the organs.

In Keeley’s case, it was her vision, and then her breathing, and her arms and legs. The thing is, in every documented case, when the tick is not found within 72 hours, the victim dies of organ failure. This disease is most common with hunting dogs and small animals in those regions. A case had not been reported in Philadelphia in more than 100 years. None of the doctors had seen it first-hand.

Two hours after the tick was removed, Keeley was starting to see some improvement. The doctors asked us to keep Keeley for the night to observe her progress. I volunteered to drive home and return by 6 am with fresh clothes for Tara and Keeley.

When I returned early the next morning, I found Keeley standing on her bed. When she saw me in the doorway, she started jumping up and down on the bed saying, “Look at me, Daddy! Look at me!” I couldn’t help the tears that fell from my eyes. I also couldn’t help but think of all the doctors that missed the tick… and the mom who found it when I had asked for a miracle. It was Tara who saved Keeley’s life.

Keeley was a bit of a celebrity that morning at the hospital. Groups of doctors wanted to meet the little girl who was the sickest patient the night before… and now the healthiest. Everything that Keeley had lost returned to her. Within 12 hours, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

A month after the incident, another little girl at CHOP had the same thing happen to her. The doctors knew what to look for. Since this was the second such recent incident, the hospital called and encouraged us to share Keeley’s story with the media as a warning about ticks.

That evening, when I arrived home from work, there was several news vans parked in front of our home. We were interviewed by various TV and radio news outlets, and crews filmed Keeley running and kicking a soccer ball with her brothers on our front lawn.

A few months later, we were contacted by the ABC News Division, and were given the opportunity to tell Keeley’s story on a new TV show called, ABC’s You be the Doctor. Keeley was the feature story on the show’s premier episode. Tara, Keeley and I were interviewed by ABC at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill, and that fall, we watched the show on national television with family and friends.

Today, Keeley is a kindergarten teacher. She excelled in school and sports and has been an active volunteer her entire life. I had the pleasure of coaching Keeley for a number of years in Rec and travel softball. She was good enough to play at the college level but chose to focus on her studies.

Keeley has inspired me over the years simply by being herself – a loving and giving young woman who now wants to dedicate her life to helping others. I am entering my 20th consecutive year as a volunteer and coach dedicated to helping players have the best experience possible. It is the sweetest debt I’ll ever have to pay.