At just 6 months old, Jocelyn Selle is already a “people person.”
“She smiles at most strangers if they come up and talk to her,” said her dad, Bryce. “She likes to look at everyone. She likes to be facing away and talking.”
And she has quite a story to tell.
Two weeks after she was born, Jocelyn caught RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. A couple of days in, it looked like she was getting better. Then things got worse.
“I just had that gut feeling. I went in and checked on her and I found her unresponsive,” Bryce said. “Her nose and lip were turning blue.”
Bryce, a paramedic, performed CPR until first responders arrived and took Jocelyn to Sanford Bismarck Medical Center in North Dakota. She was given a breathing tube right away and placed on a ventilator.
“We weren’t quite sure how long she was unresponsive for. She went into cardiac arrest a few times,” Bryce said.
“It was hard. It was a lot of unknown and a lot of trusting in our Lord,” added Jocelyn’s mom, Priscilla.
Jocelyn spent six days in the hospital in Bismarck. She had developed sepsis and septic shock, and because of excessive lung damage, she had respiratory issues.
“That’s when the doctor told us she needs to be on ECMO because he didn’t think her lungs were going to support her anymore,” Bryce said.
Energy and effort behind ECMO
ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) is used to treat severe pneumonia, heart failure, trauma, respiratory failure, sepsis and other life-threatening conditions. The advanced heart-lung bypass technology pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body, allowing the heart and lungs time to rest and heal.
Bryce and Jocelyn flew via AirMed to Sanford Children’s Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota – the only hospital in the Dakotas that offers ECMO services. She was placed on venovenous ECMO, focusing on giving her lungs a rest.
“Where we’ve found ECMO to be the most helpful is in those patients that come to us very sick, that we just don’t have that time to get them out to another facility,” said Jody Huber, M.D., a pediatric intensivist and the medical director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Sanford Children’s Hospital. “We’ve saved a number of children’s lives and young adult lives just by being able to have it here.”
Being able to provide ECMO requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. The team effort includes ECMO specialists, the pharmacy team that helps with anticoagulation, the surgery team that helps with cannulation, and the intensivist team that oversees the day-to-day management.
“You have to stay on top of your knowledge, whether it’s the latest and greatest in anticoagulation or the latest in ECMO equipment, or strategies of how to manage the patient on the ECMO circuit,” Dr.Huber said. “We have a very motivated group of intensivists and ECMO specialists, so there’s a lot of excitement and energy towards it.”
‘We felt like family’
As a first responder, Bryce has a foundation of medical knowledge. As a dad, he saw his tiny baby girl surrounded by a series of life-support machines.
“There was so much equipment in that room. We had the biggest room and we could hardly walk because these four giant machines were keeping her alive,” he said. “Just seeing the connections to her – the tubes and the blood and just how little she was – it was really hard to see that.”
The Selles found comfort in the PICU staff, whom they say kept them well-informed on any updates to Jocelyn’s condition and treatment, as well as the AirMed crew that flew them to Sioux Falls.
“Both nurses and the medic all checked up on us, so that was cool just to have the same faces come and check up on us,” Bryce said.
The PICU staff also made sure Bryce, Priscilla and Jocelyn’s two brothers had everything they needed during their stay.
“I didn’t expect to be so hospitalized myself, so cared for,” Priscilla said. “Everybody was just so kind. It wasn’t just a job to them.”
The Selles saw that kindness in the smallest of details, like a nurse who made sure Jocelyn had a new hair bow almost every day, or another who posted a handmade sign on her bed the day her breathing tube was removed.
“It was cool to see the extra effort they put in to make us feel good,” Bryce said. “We felt like family.”
Despite Jocelyn being hooked up to multiple machines, the PICU staff also took steps to make sure Bryce and Priscilla were able to hold their daughter – something they hadn’t had an opportunity to do much of during the early days of her care.
“It’s just the little things that help you recognize how precious life is,” Dr. Huber said, “and how good people can be to you, even when you’re having the scariest moment of your life.”
Happy, smiley, healthy baby
Jocelyn was on ECMO for a week, no small feat for an infant.
“It’s a big stressor for the body, and especially for small infants,” Dr. Huber said. “We have to be very careful.”
Jocelyn continued to make progress and machines disappeared one by one.
“They kept lowering the settings and all of a sudden we got to the point where they were on the lowest setting possible,” Bryce said. “Very exciting to know one piece of equipment was finally coming off, and we were working towards going home.”
The Selles spent four weeks at the children’s hospital. The day they were discharged and made the drive back to Bismarck, they arrived home in the early morning hours of Bryce’s birthday.
“It was the best birthday gift, just coming home and being with the family,” he said.
“It felt new. It felt different. We were just so happy to be home as a full family,” Priscilla added.
Jocelyn is hitting all her milestones on time, and her checkups are going well. Bryce joked that the doctors don’t think she’s the right baby because she’s “acting like a completely normal baby.”
That normalcy includes sharing her big smile with the world, including her big brothers, 4-year-old Stanley and 2-year-old Jeffrey.
“She loves them and they love her, so they’re always smiling at each other and she likes to giggle with them,” Priscilla said. “She’s a happy, smiley, healthy baby.”
Learn more
- ‘Miracle’ baby home and healthy after extended PICU stay
- Nurse thankful for new RSV treatments after son’s scare
- Sanford Children’s named one of best U.S. pediatric hospitals
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Posted In Bismarck, Children's, Emergency Medicine, Sioux Falls, Specialty Care
