In April last year, two beautiful baby girls were born at the hospital where I work and since then, I have had the privilege to work with the Mata family to share their amazing and inspiring story.
Their daughters were born sharing a chest wall, lungs, pericardial sac (the lining of the heart), diaphram, liver, intestines, colon and pelvis.
They’ve spent the last 10 months—their entire lives—in our NICU, receiving care until they were ready for surgery. I have gotten to know this family over the last 10 months and they are incredible people with strong faith and a truly inspiring attitude— even when faced with unimaginable challenges, like leaving their whole life in Lubbock, along with their 5-year-old son, to live here in Houston so that their girls can get the care they need.
I became the lead member on our PR team to work with this family to share their story in the media and we have become very close. Over the last almost year, I’ve helped the family announce the girl’s birth (when they were about 5 months old), their tissue expansion surgery and most recently, their separation surgery. I’ve also worked with our surgeons and experts so they could provide the media with insights into the complexities of the surgery and overall care during interviews.
It is with great joy that I can now say that Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith were successfully separated by a multidisciplinary team of surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital. It was a complex surgery, but these miracle babies, in the hands of our skilled surgeons, now have the chance to lead independent lives.
I can’t tell you what it means to me to know that this incredible family will get to watch their girls grow up and lead separate lives. I could write a novel about the incredible experience of working with this family and the surgical team, but I will let the stories myself and my team worked on with various media outlets tell their story because the images and videos are incredibly moving and beautiful.
My favorite story is the one I worked on with Janet Shamlian for the TODAY show. You can watch that one here. We also worked on a longer story with ABC’s Nightline that you can watch here. The Houston Chronicle story is here and Kevin Reece did a wonderful piece on KHOU, here— and there are many more but too many to share in this post. You can also view of a full gallery of photos on the Texas Children’s Hospital Facebook page.
I don’t normally share a lot about my job on my blog—I work with a lot of families that have incredible stories, but I felt compelled to share this one (with the permission of the family, of course) because I think it’s so inspiring. From the very start, this family had the attitude that this was all in God’s hands and that He would take care of the girls— and I never doubted it for a second, even knowing how complex the surgery would be.
This family has been a part of my life for nearly a year—Elysse and I talk almost every day and I am so thankful that I have had the blessing of knowing them. I also feel very lucky to have played even a very small role in such a historic surgery, as this is the first time ever that a separation of conjoined twins configured the way Knatalye and Adeline are, was successful.
If you would like continued updates, you can follow the family’s journey as their girls recover on their Facebook page and their YouCaring page. If you are so inclined, the family is also fundraising for all of the care and therapies the girls will need once they are discharged. As you can imagine, the girls will have to learn to sit, crawl, walk, etc. and I’m so grateful they will have the chance to do that.
Thank you for reading and allowing me to share a little part of what I do with you. If you’re interested in learning more about what I do, I would love to hear from you. A lot of you have emailed me about what it’s like to do PR at a children’s hospital but I’ve never done a full post about it. Let me know if you would be interested!
*All photos by Allen S. Kramer/Texas Children’s Hospital
Such a wonderful story and glad you are part of their lives. I actually would love to hear what you do!
I studied PR briefly in school, along with Journalism, Video Production and Marketing. I'm always interested in knowing what it's like on the other side of Communications.
Great post!
https://sarahwashley.blogspot.com/
Thanks so much for sharing. What a wonderful story. I would love to learn more about what you do. (I would also like to see more Lulu!)
Wow, what an amazing story. Best wishes to those little girls and their family as they move forward on this journey!
I read about this earlier! What an amazing story. My Mom works at Cook Children's Hospital and it really is amazing what the nurses and doctors and everyone really can accomplish for babies and young children.
Such a wonderful story, I really enjoy your blog and would love to hear more about what you do.
https://lovecoffeefashion.blogspot.ca
Amazing story and touching! I read almost breathless your entire story, you manage to catch sooo many feelings in simple words 🙂 . Best wishes to those little girls and their parents!
I would love to hear about your job 🙂 kisses to all of you!
This is such a great story! It is admirable to know that somewhere around the world somebody is doing such medical miracles. I live in Bulgaria and this seems light years ahead from our health care and makes me shiver to see that such things are possible, but not where I live. I would love to see more posts about your meaningful job!
http://www.midnightrain.net
This is such an inspiring story and how amazing that you've worked so closely with the family. Working in healthcare myself, this brings tears to my eyes because I love hearing about miracles and successful surgeries like this and all the advances we have in healthcare. I would absolutely love to hear more about your job. I am actually moving to Houston next summer (2016) and would absolutely love to hear more about Texas Childrens Hospital because I have always wanted to work with kids for so long now. If you wouldn't mind emailing me some more info, I would sincerely appreciate that!
Very interested to hear about what you do! I will be starting school this fall and plan to major in public relations.
I watched this story on the news the other night, so awesome you were behind telling it. Amazing the progress of science and medicine.
What an amazing story! Thanks for sharing so we can all send positive thoughts their way. It's neat to hear more about your job. As someone not in anything close to that field, I love hearing about what other women do!
I would love to hear about your job, what an inspiring story! X
Thanks for sharing the story and they are in my prayers!
Really touching story. I wish the girls and their families all the best and respect to the medical team.
https://misspippisstyle.blogspot.hu/
Thanks for sharing this touching story! As a Nurse Practitioner, I'd love hearing about your role and what's it's like working in a different capacity within a healthcare system.
Nurses are amazing! I will definitely share more about my job in an upcoming post 🙂
Bonjour,
Nous avons vu un reportage à la télévision française. j'ai pensé à vous et à l'hôpital dans lequel vous travailler. Quelle histoire émouvante.
Je viens souvent voir votre blog depuis de nombreux mois mais je n'ai jamais laissé de commentaire mais cette fois je n'ai pas hésité.
Vous êtes une personne très élégante et vous avez une très belle famille.
Je vous souhaite une belle et douce journée.
Mélanie (Paris France)
YES PLEASE! Id love to read a post about your job!!