Scraps

All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Karen Marie Mauck

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Back cover photo Copyright © 2000 Eric J. Briggs

ISBN: 0-595-14855-7

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5019-4(eBook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

EPILOGUE

To Emily, and you know why.

PREFACE

March 27, 1970

Dearest Veronica,

When you read this, I will no longer be of this world. But you will know from reading this monument to my love for you that I did love you very much and did everything I could to make sure you would succeed in this world.

When you read the pages entered in this scrapbook, you will be reminded of times both good and bad. Hopefully the good will outnumber the bad, but let the bad serve as a reminder to you that you did overcome the odds set against you by the men of the world who wish to dominate women in order to sooth their own flailing egos.

Please know that I will not allow you to be brought down by this world. I will not allow you to be treated in the same manner I was treated, as just another female. It is no coincidence that your name is Veronica: translated from Greek it means True Image. You are the true image of me, and as my true image you are going to have everything and do everything I did not or could not. No man is going to tell you what to do. No man is going to hurt you or your chances of being someone. You will succeed despite what all the men want. I will see to that. Do you hear that, Daddy? You won’t be able to hurt My True Image, so you won’t be able to hurt me anymore! I was the son he never had and

the daughter he never wanted. But not you. You are going to be someone, Veronica. This scrapbook will testify to that!

Your Loving Mother,

Theresa

CHAPTER ONE

FEATURES

The Lawrence County News, March 30, 1970 Page D 14

Birth Announcements

Veronica Lynn Park was born at 5:57 a.m. on March 27, 1970, in Lawrence County Hospital. She weighed 6 lbs. 1 oz. and was 16 inches long.

Veronica is the first child of Thomas and Theresa (Oliver) Park of Hale Park. The paternal grandparents are Andrew and Sara Park of Harrington Hills. The maternal grandparents are Buck and Sylvia Oliver of Rockingham.

The Lawrence County News June 15, 1970 Page A 3

Local baby needs experimental transplant to survive

By Michelle Stevens

Theresa Park says the fact that her baby daughter, Veronica, was born is a miracle. It will take another miracle for the infant to survive.

Veronica was born one month prematurely on March 27. At first, doctors dismissed the yellow tint to her skin and eyes as normal; many babies are born jaundiced. However, when the color deepened instead of fading, her doctors and parents began to worry.

Doctors at Lawrence County Hospital, where Veronica has spent the last month and a half, say the infant’s kidneys never fully developed inside the womb, and she needs a kidney transplant in order to survive. Veronica’s name has been added to a list of critically sick patients who also need transplants to save their lives.

Although kidney transplants have been performed in the past, the operation is still considered experimental. The first kidney transplant operation that was performed in Michigan was in 1964.

Theresa Park, 21, says she knows her daughter needs the operation, but at the same time is scared that the operation will harm her daughter.

She is so little, Park says. Her tiny body is already a tangle of wires and bandages. I just want the pain to stop.

Dr. Peter Markle, Veronica’s main pediatrician, says underdeveloped kidneys are rare in infants but have been known to occur before. A kidney transplant is the baby’s only viable option, he says.

Doctors at the University Medical Center have performed a successful kidney transplantation on a child as young as one month old, Markle says. Veronica is almost three months old, so that gives her an even bigger advantage over the other baby in question. If the UMC can do it, so can I.

In fact, doctors from the University Medical Center are acting as consultants in Veronica’s case and will be on hand during surgery, should the operation occur.

Finding organs suitable for a child of Veronica’s age, only three months, is considered the hard part in the process. Organs used in transplants are taken from recently deceased patients. In such cases, the patients are usually declared brain dead but kept alive on a respirator so that the organs continue to function until surgery to harvest the organs is performed.

One of the obstacles to organ donation is that the blood type between donor and recipient must be the same. Many times, a living relative can donate one of their own kidneys to a patient. Humans can function on just one kidney. However, in Veronica’s case, her parents’ kidneys are too large to be suitable for donation. An infant or small child must die for her to live.

Markle says the donated kidneys must be similar in size and age to the baby’s own, so that the organs will fit into her tiny body. The new kidneys will then grow with her as she ages. Finding a child with the same blood type as Veronica will be difficult. And time is running out. Markle says Veronica has just one month to live.

Park and her husband, Lawrence County Bank President Thomas Park, 36, have spent every night of the past month in the hospital, sleeping on a cot in Veronica’s room in the pediatric intensive care unit. Thomas Park has taken a partial leave of absence from his daily banking duties to be with his wife and daughter. He works mornings at the bank, then spends the rest of the day at the hospital.

My job can wait, he says. My baby comes first.

The Parks are urging people to become more aware of organ donation. Organs may only be used if the deceased patient has given prior permission, or if the surviving relatives allow the procedure. Because transplant operations are still relatively new in the medical scene, many are not aware donations can be made.

The decision to make a donation comes at the hardest time, right after a loved one has died, says Thomas Park. But if they just think that part of their loved one will continue to live on elsewhere, and lead a normal life, while at the same time save another person from certain death, the decision should be clear.

For now, Veronica lies still in an incubator. Tubes inserted into her body function in the place of shriveled kidneys, ridding toxic waste from her tiny body. Pain killers and sedatives make her sleep most of the time, so she won’t feel the pain caused by the disease or tear out the tubes that keep her alive. Her mother has not had much time to hold her.

We had her at home for about a month, and I was able to hold her there. But now she is so small, she has lost so much weight. I’m afraid I will break her if I touch her.

Theresa and Thomas Park are allowed supervised visits with their daughter. They must dress in surgeon’s scrub greens with protective gloves and masks to limit the risk of spreading infection to their baby. They can touch their daughter, wearing only a small diaper amid all of the tubing,