A Little Guy, a Long Trip and a Heart-Wrenching Homecoming

After two months away, hundreds of miles from home in a Pennsylvania hospital, Everett Allan came back to Virginia yesterday. The baby arrived by ambulance, riding with the prayers of strangers.

His transport pulled into an emergency bay at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church in the early afternoon. A respiratory therapist was the first to climb out, then a nurse, then Everett's mother and finally the tiny, blanketed Everett, "swallowed up," his mom noted, on an adult-sized gurney, with a heart monitor hanging on the side and tubes and wires running in every direction.

He weighed several ounces less than on the day he was born in October.

Little is more traumatic for families than a desperately sick child, especially an infant hospitalized at a distance measured in hours. Parents endure a seesaw of emotion and exhaustion, often without friends and other support. Pile on financial stresses and the isolation of an unfamiliar city. "A horrible journey," Allan said Sunday, her 54th day at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

For Heather, 30, and husband Scott, 36, it began with a middle-of-the-night crisis on New Year's Eve. Halfway back from a visit to relatives in upstate New York, they awoke in their hotel room and realized that their son was having trouble breathing. There was a call to 911, a lights-and-siren rush to a local emergency room and, just before dawn, an airlift to Pittsburgh and a struggle to save Everett.

The period that followed split the family. Mom remained with the baby, and dad went back to Alexandria with their three young daughters until Everett was stable enough to travel. His trip back yesterday almost didn't happen. Late last week, the Allans' health insurance company reversed a commitment to pay for the ambulance, saying his return was for the convenience of his parents. Children's Hospital decided otherwise and announced that it would cover the several-thousand-dollar cost. Heather and her son were already en route to Northern Virginia when they learned that the insurance company had relented and would pay the bill.

"Welcome home," a doctor told Heather as she waited with the gurney inside the Inova ER doors. She started to cry.

Everett's medical difficulties, the genesis of which remains a mystery, surfaced just after birth. He was a big boy, more than 9 pounds, despite arriving several weeks early. In his second day of life, his stomach became distended, and he underwent a battery of tests for a potential intestinal blockage. Nothing turned up, but his belly repeatedly swelled and his mother had to stop breastfeeding. Getting Everett his nutrition without touching off digestive problems became a precarious balancing act.

At 18 days, he was discharged. He was home for just a week. He was readmitted for 10 days with pneumonia. After that, the worst seemed to be over.

But the illusion was shattered Jan. 1. The doctors at Children's Hospital diagnosed more pneumonia. "It just overwhelmed his body," physician Joseph Carcillo said. Twice, Everett was put on a ventilator. For 15 days he was on round-the-clock heart and lung bypass because both organs were so weak.

"They're all sick," Carcillo said of the young patients on the intensive-care floor where Everett spent all but one week. "But he was sicker."

The family's trauma, of course, was not contained to Pennsylvania. Back home, twins Molly and Caroline, 3, began waking up with nightmares. Their dad, a physical education teacher in the Alexandria school system, began sleeping in their room to comfort them and big sister Natalie, 5.

Despite Everett's return to Northern Virginia, there's little certainty. Genetic testing has eliminated some of the worst possible underlying causes -- cystic fibrosis, for one. "I'm very grateful that he's coming up negative with all these," Scott said, "but at the same time there's this nagging, 'What's wrong?' "

As the ambulance was on the highway yesterday, he got a call, and an apology. The insurance company had reconsidered. A spokeswoman for UnitedHealthcare explained its reasoning later, saying a management team had looked the case over and decided that Everett's trip home was "in the best interests of the patient and his family."

At Inova's Children's Hospital, an entire team was ready. Specialists, nurses, residents all had been alerted. "Everyone knows about him," his pediatrician, Linda Friehling, said.

The doctor hugged Heather as Everett was evaluated in his room. "Look how he's holding his head up," Friehling noted.

"He's been through more than the rest of us will in a lifetime," Heather said.