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| Family strong after son’s heart surgery |
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| Written by Jesse Trimble | |||
| Wednesday, 21 October 2009 08:00 | |||
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Drake Renner has about a 10-inch long scar under his left shoulder blade that he’ll wear for the rest of his life. But he’ll wear it proudly; because the surgery from which he received the scar saved his life. A Cut-a-thon and fund-raiser will be held in November to help Drake and his family with the cost of his heart surgery and hospital stay. The fund-raiser will take place at 7 p.m. on Nov. 14 at the American Legion, 403 S. 9th St., and will include door prizes, an auction, a DJ and brisket sandwiches for $5 a plate. Free beer, pop and water will also be available. Donations are accepted at the door and if anyone has items to contribute for prizes or pies to slice up and sell by the piece, contact Lissa Cranston-Shearer at 913-406-8348. Other funds for the Renner family will be from a Cut-a-thon, which is taking place from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at The Den Barbershop, 8959 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park. Drake is also selling bags of his very own spice rub recipe for $10 a bag. The recipe, which was featured in Tastebud magazine based out of Kansas City, inspired Drake to start selling it last summer at the end of his driveway. A heartbeat away Drake was like most 10-year-old boys. The blond, athletic kid has lots of friends and comes from a good family. When Drake got sick August 19, his first day of school this year, his mother Jodi and father Dennis barely had time to blink before their youngest boy wound up having a six-hour surgery to try and save his life.  Dennis and Jodi took Drake to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., where doctors ran tests to find out what was wrong. It was after several blood tests and a week in the hospital that the Renner’s were told their 10-year-old had a strep infection residing in his bloodstream. “It had settled in his muscular system, which is rare,” Jodi recalled. “He couldn’t walk for three days.” Jodi began doing her own research, trying to help her son in any way she could. She said she discovered if strep settles in the muscular system that it could go to the heart, but it supposedly only happened in very rare cases. Drake was released from the hospital and given 10 days worth of antibiotics. On the 11th day, Dennis said he knew something was wrong. “He just didn’t look right and it seemed like he was worse,” Dennis said. Drake hadn’t even been off antibiotics for a full day yet. Drake went back to Children’s Mercy for more tests. The doctors ran some tests. And then they ran some more. And more. Everything came back negative. Doctors even ran an echocardiogram to make sure the strep had not traveled into Drake’s small beating heart. Instead, what they discovered was that Drake’s 10-year-old heart was trying to narrow. It’s called a coarctation of the aorta and according to Mayoclinic.com, it is the narrowing of the aorta, the blood vessel that branches off of the heart and delivers oxygen-rich blood to the body. It makes one’s heart pump twice as hard to get blood to the body. Drake’s had it since the day he was born. “It’s a birth defect,” Jodi said shaking her head and staring at her son at the kitchen table. “He’s always had it and lived with it for 10 years,” Dennis added, nodding while helping Drake remove the I.V. needle from Drake’s arm for antibiotics. “You ever hear about those college athletes that just drop on the field?” Jodi asks. “Well this is it. Ninety-one percent fatality rate by 40 years of age.” But the strep hadn’t reached Drake’s heart. And the Renners started calling cardiologists. Doctors, however, weren’t concerned and so Drake’s parents pushed to get him in somewhere. Plus, Drake’s back started keeping him in pain every waking moment. “All I could think was, ‘Something’s wrong, something’s wrong,’” Jodi said. An unexpected trip On September 16, Drake was back in the hospital. This time there was no pulse found in Drake’s feet, which led the nurse to believe the narrowing in Drake’s heart was happening quickly. On September 24, an MRI was done to place a stent in Drake’s heart. He was released and allowed to go to school. Drake’s parents had informed school teachers to make Drake take it easy. Being very athletic, Drake would have none of it and ran the 40-yard-dash in gym with the fastest time out of anyone else in the school. “I play baseball, soccer and I was going to do wrestling this year...,” Drake’s voice trailed off since it’s obvious now he cannot participate in wrestling. It was around this time that Dennis left Kansas and traveled to Virginia, his home state, to look for work. Having been unemployed since the beginning of September and after losing his own business in 2008, he was running out of options. With his father in Virginia, Drake and Jodi faced the doctors alone. Jodi said she felt this MRI would lead to something. “I just felt something was going to be found,” she said. But doctors released Drake. Jodi wasn’t so sure, so she took Drake to get something to eat in the hospital and as they were a block away from the hospital, she got a call. “They told us to come back,” Jodi said, as her and Drake’s eyes met. “We both started crying.” When the two arrived back at Children’s Mercy, the doctor was distraught, according to Jodi. They had found something and that something was killing Drake. The aorta is the largest artery in the body and resembles a large tube-like straw that sits vertically within the heart. Drake’s aorta looked like a straw with a golf ball stuck inside. Strep, or streptococcus, had settled in Drake’s aorta undetected by doctors. “It is an evil, evil thing,” Jodi said vehemently of strep. The doctor told Jodi that her son needed to be admitted right then and that the sooner they could open him up the better. “Drake and I just started crying,” Jodi said. “We were just holding each other alone, crying.” Jodi said doctors told her if the aorta ruptured, her son had a five percent chance of survival. A photo of Drake’s heart was taken to the lead cardiologist, who was in surgery, to express the fragility of Drake’s situation. While Drake was being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, Dennis was making the trip back from Virginia a week early. He had 1,700 miles to go when Jodi called and told him that their son may not make it through the night. Dennis drove all night and all day, stopping only to refuel and grab food. The entire drive, he searched in vain for a state trooper to escort him back to his dying son. Drake’s surgery took place on Sept. 25 at 8 a.m. and Dennis arrived at 1 a.m. that morning. For the surgery, doctors went through Drake’s back, hooked him up to a bypass machine, collapsed a lung, dropped his temperature to 94 degrees, drained his chest of blood and fluid and, finally, stopped his heart. “We didn’t know if we’d ever see him again,” Jodi said. Aftermath The doctors determined the infection wasn’t active and removed three and a half inches of Drake’s aorta and replaced it with two adult aorta donors, which they sewed together to create Drake’s new aorta. Dr. Gary Lofland, who is a section chief and specializes in pediatric cardiovascular surgery, operated on Drake. “He’s a rockstar,” Jodi said of Lofland. When Drake came out of surgery, his parents noted that he looked like a different kid. Having been a very pale color all his life, Drake now had flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “He went from having no pulse in his feet to having ticklish feet and eating like a teenager,” Dennis noted. “My feet had never been ticklish before,” Drake added. Jodi said Drake had always associated eating with pain. Drake finished her sentence, “My stomach never had enough blood going to it, which made it hurt when I ate,” he said. “The first thing he said when he woke up was, ‘I’m hungry,’ and he had to mouth it to us because of all the tubes still in his throat,” Dennis said grinning at his son. Drake spent a total of 12 days in the hospital, having extra fluid drained from his body and starting to walk again. Staying strong Despite a happy ending, the Renners have been fighting with their insurance company over the cost of Drake’s care. “Everything is out of our pockets,” Jodi said, “because we have a catastrophic policy.” Dennis is still looking for work, which also allows him to attend school with Drake for his first few weeks back. “I feel like my dad is my bodyguard at school,” Drake said, smiling. On Drake’s first day back at school, his class gave him a standing ovation. Dennis immediately started to cry. “He calls me a crybaby now,” Dennis said of Drake. “This entire thing has made me very emotional.” For the first time after recounting all they had been through as a family, Jodi started to tear up. “His (Drake’s) friends, everyone in the community has been amazing,” she said. “They’ve all been rallying for us and it’s been very humbling and hard to accept.” “We’re very appreciative,” Dennis added. “My gratitude is over the top,” Jodi said. “I am so thankful and don’t know what to say anymore.”
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