When Tiffany Kirby was 21 weeks pregnant with her second daughter, physicians discovered a tumor on the baby’s neck during an ultrasound. This was the first time that Tiffany realized that anything may be wrong with her child.
Before the mother in Palm Coast knew for certain that her daughter Peyton Marie would be well, it would be many more months, she would have to through a scary 14-hour operation, and she would have to have a C-section. Peyton’s care is something the physicians at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville say they would have had to outsource to a children’s hospital in a larger city even just a few years ago, and her success in some ways reflects their own. Peyton’s condition is something that doctors at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville say they would have had to outsource.
“In the past, we would have sent Peyton’s case to Miami or Atlanta or some other city,” said Saswata Roy, a craniofacial surgeon at Wolfson and Nemours. “Nowadays, however, we are able to treat patients in our own facility.” However, we possess all of the necessary skill sets to do even the most difficult procedures at this time.
Peyton’s case was being worked on by Roy and another physician named Nick Poulos, who specializes in pediatric surgery. They watched the growth of the lump on Peyton’s neck as it occurred before she was born and considered the many possibilities. When Kirby checked in on July 11 for her planned C-section, the medical staff was on call and maintained a room next door just in case Peyton had any issues during the delivery. However, she emerged wailing, and the physicians were able to determine that her respiration was OK despite the lump, which was almost as big as her head.
Her mother was preoccupied with her own health for the first two days, so she was unable to meet her daughter. During that time, her fiancé, Andrew Dandurand, gave her images to help her be ready. Kirby said that her daughter was stunning, despite the fact that the bulk was somewhat larger than she had anticipated.
“It looked like it was covering her throat, and that was scaring me the most, like she wouldn’t be able to breathe,” Kirby recalled. “That was the thing that was scaring me the most.”
They waited almost one month for Peyton to gain some weight since the lump, which was classified as a benign tumor termed a cystic hygroma and is caused by a lymph blood artery abnormality, was responsible for approximately one third of her 8 pounds and 15 ounces. She had surgery on August 8, which Roy characterized as “an extremely complicated undertaking” since the tumor stretched into her neck and chest and was intertwined with nerves and arteries. The procedure was performed to remove the lump.