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Tuesday, July 14, 2009
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Back to being a baby 5-month-old girl recovering nicely after being struck by ball at game Staff Writer Payten Svendsen-Johnson does everything you'd expect from a 5-month-old baby.
She smiles at her mom's baby talk, tries her best to sit upright and puts everything she can get her hands on, including her 4-year-old sister's hair, into her mouth.
Looking at her, she's as normal a baby girl as you could hope to find.
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Amanda Svendsen on Monday sat with her 5-month-old daughter, Payten Svendsen-Johnson, at their southeast Brainerd home. Payten spent two weeks at Children's Hospital in St. Paul with her skull fractured in two places and suffering from seizures after she was struck by a baseball June 10 at Jaycees Park in Brainerd. Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
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Except the past month for Payten has been anything but normal, not since she was struck in the head June 10 by a foul baseball at a Bronco League game at Jaycees Park in Brainerd.
The impact left Payten hospitalized for two weeks with two skull fractures behind both ears and suffering from seizures, some lasting more than 40 minutes.
Payten's mom, Amanda Svendsen, and her 4-year-old sister, Madison, were attending a baseball game of a friend's son when a foul ball from an adjacent field flew into the stands in which Svendsen was sitting, feeding Payten.
Svendsen said she didn't know what had happened at first. No one yelled out that the foul ball was coming.
"It almost sounded like someone threw a baseball glove up in the air and it slapped her on the head," Svendsen said. "It made a slapping noise. It wasn't like a thud."
The baseball struck Payten behind her ear on the right side of her head. She cried for about three minutes and then went to sleep, Svendsen said. She later learned the second fracture behind her other ear was probably due to a ripple effect of the initial impact.
Madison went with the husband of Svendsen's friend, and Payten and her mom went to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Brainerd. When it was learned she had suffered a skull fracture, Payten was taken by ambulance to Children's Hospital in St. Paul, where she was joined by her mom and her dad, Pat Johnson.
"After that it's really hard to keep everything straight because we didn't sleep much," Svendsen said.
Payten started having seizures at the St. Paul hospital, the longest lasting 42 minutes. She was placed on anti-seizure medication, intubated with a breathing tube and sedated in an effort to control the seizures.
Payten was intubated for 24 hours, then woken up. She was re-intubated four hours later because she seized five more times, lasting between four to 20 minutes.
"It was hard, especially when she was intubated because we couldn't sit in her room, we couldn't touch her, we couldn't hold her," Svendsen said. "If we were in her room we couldn't talk because she was already fighting the meds that were supposed to be keeping her sleeping. If we talked, she knew that was mom or that was dad and she'd fight it more."
Mom and dad stayed at the hospital. Madison stayed with Svendsen's sister, and often asked mom when they would be home. One night, Madison went outside and wished on a star that her sister would come home that next day.
"That almost broke my heart," Svendsen said.
Payten stayed sedated for a week, then was slowly brought out of sedation and had her breathing tube removed. She remained seizure free and was released from the hospital June 24, just two weeks after being admitted.
Payten went home with a feeding tube, which was removed July 8. Svendsen also said her daughter lost some mobility in her left arm, which was where the seizures were noticeable. A nurse has been paying visits a couple times a week and Payten is getting mobility back in her arm.
Payten will continue to visit a neurologist and is on two anti-seizure medications, one of which she may be on for most of her life.
Still, the effects of her injuries are not noticeable today.
"If you didn't know what had happened you wouldn't be able to tell," Svendsen said. "There's no swelling any more. We did get pictures of that in the hospital. As hard as they were to take, it is a part of her life.
"But right now she's doing wonderful. It's exciting. She's definitely doing a lot better. Aren't you? Aren't you?" mom says, cuddling Payten in her lap, who gives a warm giggle in reply.
MATT ERICKSON may be reached at matt.erickson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5857.
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