Pennsylvania Volunteers

State Representative
Felecia Woodruff

Hayden, Felecia, Bryson

Felecia is the mom of Bryson Woodruff, born July 30^th, 2012 at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He was diagnosed with left congenital diaphragmatic hernia and a lung lesion on his right lung during his 20-week anatomy scan and was referred to CHOP. Bryson was born at 39 week via emergency c-section and was put on ECMO after a few hours. He was on ECMO for 21 days and had his CDH repair surgery at 32 days old with a patch. He came home after 90 days in the NICU with only an NG tube and a few medicines.  He is a very happy and loving brother to his big sister, Hayden.

She lives with her husband and 2 children in Delaware County, Pennsylvania and is a CHERUBS state representative for Pennsylvania. She is an office manager for a lawn care company and a front desk coordinator for a hair salon.

Hospital Angel
Jessica Cummings

Jessica

Jessica Cummings is a mom to two beautiful boys, Dominick ,3, and Nathaniel, a CDH angel that grew his wings at 24 days old. Jessica is a Hospital Angel for Pittsburgh, PA. Jessica has been married to her husband, Chris, since 2005 and they live north of Pittsburgh, PA. Jessica is a lab technician/lab manager in a prostate cancer lab at the University of Pittsburgh and Chris is an electrician for a steel mill, Allegheny Ludlum.

With a history of multiple miscarriages and complications, Jessica was surprised that her pregnancy with Nathaniel was textbook perfect until his left- sided CDH was discovered at her 18 week ultrasound.  Nathaniel’s stomach, intestines,  and liver were already in his chest,  pushing his heart to the right and severely limiting his lung growth. Nathaniel had very little lung growth and was given a lung to head ration of 0.2, giving him a less than 20 % chance at survival.  Jessica decided that she wanted to give Nathaniel the best possible chance, and traveled to both UCSF in San Francisco, CA and Brown University in Providence, RI to discuss Fetal Tracheal Occlusion. Jessica choose to have the surgery In RI but the day before surgery, an ultrasound showed that Nathaniel’s lungs had grown and he was no longer a candidate for the tracheal occlusion.

Nathaniel was born at 39 weeks in Pittsburgh at Magee Women’s Hospital  September 1, 2011 and sent immediately to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, down the street. Nathaniel went immediately onto ECMO, and had very few problems during his 23 day run. He went through one circuit change, and a slight brain bleed after birth, but no other complications. Nathaniel did very well with his lung recruitment, but had very severe pulmonary hypertension that he could not overcome. He survived for 26 hours after being removed from ECMO. Nathaniel never had his hernia repair surgery. Initially it had been discussed a week after birth, however, his lung recruitment started improving so the doctors decided it was safest to wait until Nathaniel was off of ECMO and more stable.