DeLand mom, baby home after swine-flu saga

PHOTO COURTESY CRYSTAL AND STEVEN KOENIG
Family portrait — The Koenig family — Crystal, Steven and baby Zoe — pose for a family portrait before leaving the hospital Dec. 26.

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Peaceful sleep — Zoe Grace Koenig slumbers peacefully at home Jan. 7, as her parents discuss the circumstances around her birth. Her mother, Crystal, contracted swine flu when she was about five months pregnant with Zoe.

Family celebrates blessings, struggles to recover

By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Jan 14, 2010 - 4:28:54pm

The swine-flu epidemic seems to be in a lull, but that's little comfort to Crystal and Steven Koenig and their baby, Zoe Grace.

Crystal is still recovering from the swine flu she contracted in September, while she was pregnant with Zoe. It nearly took her life and endangered Zoe's.

In their DeLand home, the Koenigs talked about their experiences.

Crystal is still using oxygen, and will be for a while. Her voice gave witness to weakness and exhaustion.

The Beacon first reported the story Nov. 5, while Crystal was in critical condition in the hospital.

Zoe was delivered prematurely Oct. 27, six months into 34-year-old Crystal's pregnancy. Crystal was in a medically induced coma, as doctors struggled to save her life.

Mom was finally able to come home the week before Christmas; Zoe came home Dec. 26.

Swine flu can be especially devastating to pregnant women. The family is celebrating Crystal's survival, but they are worried about the future.

At the end of September, everything was looking rosy. The couple wed. Crystal, who deals with chronic bronchitis, wasn't feeling well during the ceremony. She was pregnant with Zoe.

Two days after the wedding, Crystal, an emergency-room nurse in Putnam County, noticed flu-like symptoms developing, including a fever of 103.9. Steven took her to the emergency room at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach. After some lab work, doctors sent her home.

Eight hours later, Steven took her back to the emergency room. Crystal was vomiting and coughing up blood-like fluid from her lungs, Steven said. As soon as doctors discovered Crystal's critically low blood-oxygen levels, they went into emergency mode.

Tests revealed the presence of H1N1 or swine flu.

"I asked to be intubated," Crystal said. That meant she would go on a ventilator in the intensive-care unit. She couldn't breathe.

Crystal expected that to last three days.

She doesn't remember much more.

"She was down for three months," Steven said.

After Crystal went on the ventilator, her doctors tried to decide whether to deliver baby Zoe Grace to help Crystal survive. At that point, Zoe would have had only a 20-percent chance of survival, Steven said.

He feared he would lose both wife and child.

A month later, on Oct. 27, the doctors gave Zoe an 80-percent chance of survival, and said she had to be delivered then, to save Crystal's life. Carrying the baby was putting too much stress on Crystal's respiratory system. Her pregnancy was six months along.

Crystal's blood-oxygen levels were high enough that day to give her a good chance of surviving the emergency Caesarean section, Steven explained.

Zoe came through the procedure well, but at 2 pounds, 12 ounces, and only 15 inches long, she needed expert care in the neonatal unit until Christmas.

With tears misting his eyes, Steven recalled Crystal awakening several times, realizing she was no longer pregnant, and panicking.

"I had to tell her 10 times, she had Zoe," Steven said.

He slept a lot on a bed in Crystal's room, and became an expert in emptying bedpans and changing dressings. Other times, Steven stayed at his father's house, near the medical center.

Now, both Crystal and Zoe are home. Crystal spends most of her time on the sofa, hooked up to oxygen. She can get up for brief periods. She faces physical and respiratory rehabilitation and plastic surgery to repair a painful bedsore that developed on her back.

Crystal is on a "boxful" of medications, she said.

Zoe, at almost 6 pounds, seems to be doing well. Doctors told the couple, until Zoe is 2 years old, they won't be able to determine if she suffered any physical or neurological damage from oxygen deprivation before she was delivered.

Zoe came out of the womb in better shape than the doctors expected. She was kicking and screaming, the Koenigs said.

Hospital staff called the baby "Crystal's pistol" and later nicknamed her "Firecracker" because she turns bright red when she cries.

Now, Steven and Crystal are watching, waiting and praying.

"I know God does everything for a reason," Crystal said.

She and Steven are grateful for the outpouring of love and support that came from the DeLand community after the initial Beacon story.

Crystal wasn't eligible for group health insurance the day she went into the hospital. She would have been the next day. She was working while Steven attended college. So, the Koenigs had no insurance to cover Crystal's and Zoe's long stays or expensive treatment and medication.

They are trying to navigate the Medicaid system. Meanwhile, expenses are mounting.

On Jan. 16, friends will throw the baby shower they didn't have a chance to give before Crystal got sick. In lieu of gifts, donations will be made to a special fund set up at Mainstreet Community Bank of Florida.

Anyone can make a donation. Mainstreet Bank's main office is at 204 S. Woodland Blvd. in DeLand, but donations can be made at any branch. There are branches at 1500 N. Spring Garden Ave. in DeLand, and 850 S. Volusia Ave. in Orange City.

Write "for Steven and Crystal Koenig" in the memo line on the check.

Crystal, who's been a medical missionary to Haiti a number of times, said it feels strange being on the receiving end. She is grateful.

After spending 12 weeks in the hospital, she just hopes to be able to return to work in a couple of months, when her six-month leave runs out. Doctors told her full rehabilitation could take six months to a year.

— pat@beacononlinenewscom

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