My name is Teresa and my son Alan was born with CMV. I was 19 when he was born. I worked in a nursing home when I was pregnant with him. I was bitten by a resident and this is how I think I aquired CMV.
I had a hard pregnancy. I got into a car accident when I was 5 months along and thought I was ok, but I ended up with a blod clot in my leg the size of a baseball. I was put in the hospital when I was 7 months because my legs swelled huge.
I was on bedrest until I delivered at 8 1/2 months. I then had an emergency c-section because his cord was wrapped around his neck cutting off oxygen. When he was born everything seemed fine, except he failed his newborn hearing screening. Once he was one month old, he had a high fever and they did a smear of his nose and found CMV.
I was told my baby would be blind, deaf, or mentally retarded and the doctor left town. I took him for his ABR and found he was profoundly deaf in his right ear. We were sent to Pittsburgh Children's Hospital to Dr. Ellen Wald, Infectious Disease doctor. She put him on a study where he recieved IV Gancyclovir for 2 1/2 years by central line.
He finally began an oral Gancyclovir when he was 3. He had 3 different central lines placed due to infections. He has 3 calcifications on his brain, is deaf in the right ear, has a speech delay, and autism. He goes to regular high school in special classes. He is in typical choir. He is in the musical at the high school.
Alan is now 16. He likes to ghost hunt, play special needs soccer, and is learning how to smart mouth from his younger sister, Makayla, who is 13 and a typical teenager.
- Shared by his mother, Teresa