When Catherine awoke one morning with pain in her abdomen, she trusted her instincts and went to the UAMS emergency room. After surgery to remove her appendix, a routine medical test revealed that her appendix was infiltrated with a cancerous tumor. An additional surgery was performed to remove part of her colon, and she was then diagnosed with stage II colon cancer. Catherine was advised that if she had not been diagnosed, she would have been dead within two years.

Since Catherine had two different types of cancer, she needed to undergo chemotherapy. Catherine and her husband, Jeffrey Burton, wanted to have a child and were concerned about the affect of her cancer treatment on her ability to conceive a child. Her oncologist, Issam Makhoul, M.D., had not encountered a similar situation because most women diagnosed with colon cancer are past their childbearing years.

Dr. Makhoul created an individualized treatment plan for Catherine to preserve her fertility. Chemotherapy targets dividing cells, so Dr. Makhoul used medications to put Catherine’s ovaries to sleep. While there were no guarantees, Catherine and the staff at UAMS hoped that her ovaries would be protected from the cancer treatment.

At the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Dr. Makhoul conducts clinical research and treats patients. “I don’t want my patients to wear the ‘cancer’ label. It’s not enough for me to treat the disease of cancer only from a medical standpoint. I want to heal the person so that they are empowered to regain control and reconnect with their life,” he said. “I don’t want my patients to live in fear. If we have helped patients to reestablish normalcy so that they can enjoy the important as well as trivial things in life, then we have achieved a lot.”

Two years later, Catherine and her husband were thrilled to learn that she was pregnant. Because Catherine had some complications with a previous pregnancy and due to her cancer treatment, her pregnancy was treated by Paul Wendel, M.D. through the UAMS high-risk pregnancy program.

“With the only board-certified maternal-fetal medicine physicians in Arkansas along with state-of-the-art equipment and technology, I believe UAMS offers the best in medical care for patients who have high-risk pregnancies,” said Dr. Wendel.

Catherine and her family welcomed McKenzie June Burton, a happy and healthy baby girl who was born at UAMS. While the road to bring McKenzie into the world was full of bumps along the way, Catherine is very grateful to all of the UAMS staff members who worked to restore her health and made the birth of her daughter possible.

                                                                                                                                                        
“I owe McKenzie’s life to all of the doctors and surgeons at UAMS. Timing is everything, and in my case, it was life or death. I did not have any of the signs of cancer. Thanks to all the staff who assisted in saving my life and delivering a new life. UAMS is top notch!”
                                                                                                                                                         
Looking at the photo of Catherine and McKenzie, Dr. Makhoul smiles. “The assignment that I give to my patients, if they want to reward me in any way, is to go and be happy and live a long life. Knowing that Catherine and her baby are thriving is a gift to me.”

The oncologist had bluntly informed the 27-year-old Little Rock realtor that she had cervical cancer.

“I was in such a state I was dizzy. I went to my mom and said, ‘I need a second opinion.’ I wanted a doctor I could easily talk to.”

That’s when she called UAMS and Dr. Alexander “Sandy” Burnett. The gynecologic oncologist had recently become the first surgeon in Arkansas to use a robotic procedure called a trachelectomy to remove a patient’s cancerous cervix through small incisions in her abdomen while preserving her ability to have children. Could he help her?

As a young adult, Johnson-Davis was punctual in getting her annual Pap smear. Her grandmother had died from cervical cancer when her mother was just 10 years old. Johnson-Davis’ tests had always been fine until the spring of 2007 when it showed abnormal cells on her cervix.

She underwent a colposcopy, a procedure that uses an instrument with a magnifying lens and a light to examine the cervix, and a biopsy. Afterward, the doctor’s office called her to come in immediately.

“My stomach was in knots. I had no idea what they were going to tell me,” said Johnson-Davis.

Her gynecologist sent her to see the oncologist, who performed a procedure to remove the abnormal cells. After receiving the startling cancer diagnosis by phone, she went for her next appointment and was told, “You’ll never have kids. You need a full hysterectomy.”

Something rose up in her. She thought, “You’re not going to decide my future. I’m going to decide it.”

After she turned to UAMS, Burnett studied her file and repeated the colposcopy. The cancer had grown. Burnett recommended she undergo the trachelectomy.

But before she could be scheduled for surgery, she discovered she was pregnant. Surgery would have to wait. Since going into labor could disturb the cancer, Burnett scheduled a C-section two weeks before her due date.

A perfectly healthy Hadley Davis was born July 31, 2008. On Nov. 21, 2008, Burnett performed a robotic radical trachelectomy, removing the cervix and five lymph nodes. The cancer was finally gone.

“I just can’t thank Dr. Burnett enough,” said Johnson-Davis, now 29. “Had I not found him, I’d have a huge void in my life. I think I would have a little bit of a broken spirit.”

The new procedure allows a woman to have more children, though Johnson-Davis is not sure she will choose to due to the high risks. “Dr. Burnett is so positive. He said, ‘Give that baby some brothers and sisters. If you want to have another one, I feel confident that you can.’”

These days she is back working full time. She is grateful to her husband, Josh Davis, who with their parents helped care for her and the baby during her weeks-long recovery.

“We have such strong faith in my family. That’s the only thing probably that kept all of us from breaking down,” she said. “I tried to just hold positive and be so grateful that yeah, I’m going through this, but look at this blessing that I’m holding.”

Although she’s a registered nurse, she doesn’t work with newborns, and as a new mom she wasn’t sure about the transition to life without the 24-hour expert care and all the sophisticated monitoring devices.

“I’ve been watching this monitor for the past five weeks,” Baker said, noting that Caleb’s low heart rate had been a primary concern for the NICU staff. “When I get home, I won’t have the monitor to look at, just him.”

To ease the transition, Baker is taking advantage of a new program in which health care professionals from UAMS travel the state to assist families with their high-risk newborns after they’ve been discharged.

Called “Following Baby Back Home,” the UAMS KIDS FIRST and ANGELS (Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System) program targets families that live outside a 50-mile radius of Little Rock. Families within a 50-mile radius of Little Rock are served by another program.

The health care teams visit babies discharged from UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and other nurseries throughout the state that care for high-risk newborns.

When parents bring their baby home from the NICU, their joy is often replaced with anxiety, said KIDS FIRST Medical Director Patrick H. Casey, M.D., Harvey and Bernice Jones Professor of Developmental Pediatrics.

“The reality of caring for a medically complex infant can quickly become overwhelming,” Casey said. “Learning about medical equipment and medications, keeping up with appointments, watching for signs of complications, all while caring for a tiny newborn and possibly other children can take its toll on the entire family.”

Home visits will be done at the request of the family and as part of each baby’s NICU discharge plan. Each visiting team includes a pediatric registered nurse and a care coordinator who works with the child’s primary and specialty care providers. The visiting team will encourage the family to keep medical appointments and get immunizations for the baby while building the family’s skills and confidence in providing a safe, nurturing home.

Following Baby Back Home services, funded by a state Medicaid contract, are available in the northeast, northwest and southern regions of the state, with offices in Newport, Lowell and Pine Bluff.

Baker, who lives between Rison and Warren, said she and her husband, Randall, are looking forward to the visits.

“It gives us peace of mind knowing that they’ll be there once a week, and they’ll come for up to a year if that’s necessary,” she said.

“I tell my patients that UAMS is the best hospital if you have a high-risk pregnancy or a baby prematurely. I could have gone anywhere to have my babies, but I practice what I preach. Thanks to the awesome doctors and nurses at UAMS, I have two wonderful, healthy children,” George said. 

“My obstetrician in West Memphis called the hospital in Memphis pleading with them to take me. They refused because they didn’t consider my baby a viable life at 23 weeks.” After three attempts by phone to talk the closer hospital into taking Michelle, her physician called UAMS. “They said, ‘come on down’ and I was taken there by helicopter. Jamey and I were scared to death,” she said. 

When Stilwell arrived at UAMS, “There were so many people that came in. I was by myself because Jamey had to drive, but they took such good care of me. There must have been about 20 doctors and nurses that came rushing in. It was overwhelming.” Within an hour after she arrived at UAMS, Stilwell gave birth to Maggie Jane who weighed 1 pound, 1 ounce.

Maggie Jane was more than a month old before her parents got to hold her for the first time and then it was only for a minute. By the time she was discharged she weighed more than 4 pounds and her parents were able to hold her as long as they wanted.

The care at UAMS, said Stilwell, has been wonderful. “The nurses in the NICU are so caring and you can tell they love what they do,” she said. “They really keep you informed and treat you so well. The doctors are the same way. We saw so many, but they all remembered us. We would be walking down the hallway in the hospital and they would stop us and ask us how we were doing.”

Because Stilwell and Nichols couldn’t be with Maggie Jane all the time, the nurses in NICU took pictures of her and kept a daily journal for them. “They let us phone the NICU anytime of the day or night,” said Stilwell, “and they would put the phone up to her bassinet so we could talk to her and listen to her coo.”

While Maggie Jane was hospitalized her parents stayed at the UAMS Family Home in Little Rock to be close to her. The couple has two other children, Hannah, 17, and Matthew, 5, and they stayed in Osceola with family. “The staff in the UAMS neonatal intensive care unit asked us if we wanted to move the baby to a hospital closer to home, but we declined,” Stilwell said. “We wouldn’t trust anyone else with her. UAMS was there for us when others turned us away, and without the doctors and nurses there we wouldn’t have Maggie Jane.”

When Karen Howlett counts her blessings, she starts with the three most dear: her daughter, her son and her vision. She wouldn’t have any of them, she said, without UAMS.

Diagnosed with Marfan’s syndrome at age 5, Howlett’s parents knew she faced a life of challenges. Marfan’s syndrome is a genetic condition that affects the body’s connective tissue and can cause multiple medical conditions, including dislocated lenses and complications in pregnancy.

“Dr. Wendel believed in me and made sure I received the best possible care during my pregnancies. My children were the first two blessings.”

Although her vision began to deteriorate at an early age, Howlett developed a love of horseback riding, competing in both barrel racing and pole bending events. “I knocked down a lot of poles because of my vision problems,” she said.

As an adult, Howlett’s vision continued to decline, resulting in her sometimes resorting to wearing contact lenses and glasses at the same time. “Because my vision was so poor, I was afraid to stay alone overnight. I eventually had to stop driving, which was really difficult for a 34-year-old to accept,” she said.

At the same time Howlett was struggling with her vision, she was advised not to have children due to possible heart-related complications from Marfan’s. When Howlett became unexpectedly pregnant in 2000, she and her husband, Lew, sought the care of Dr. Paul Wendel, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in the UAMS high-risk pregnancy program. UAMS is home to the only board-certified maternal-fetal specialists in Arkansas.
Under Wendel’s care, Howlett successfully delivered her daughter, Jessica, who was followed two years later by the planned pregnancy of her brother, Justin.

“Dr. Wendel believed in me and made sure I received the best possible care during my pregnancies. My children were my first two blessings,” Howlett said.

Howlett’s third blessing came in the form of a visit to Dr. Nicola Kim at the UAMS Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute. Under the care of UAMS ophthalmologist Dr. Richard Harper since the early 1990s, Howlett was told in late 2006 that her eyes had reached the point that she eligible for a surgical procedure that could potentially improve her vision.
Kim performed three procedures on Howlett — a laser treatment on her left eye and a lens implementation in both eyes — bringing her vision to a near perfect 20/25.

“The first time I looked at my children after my surgery, my heart melted. It was like seeing them for the first time,” she said. “I could see everything, even the specks of color in their eyes. A whole new world was opened up for me.”