Bria and Brenda Merrion

Brenda Merrion of Jamaica, New York describes the healing process as “. . . a whole package, not just a bandage on a wound. It’s the child, the parents, the siblings, the doctors. Ronald McDonald House helps you channel it all together.”

And, certainly, Brenda, the mother of nine-year-old Bria, would know. Born at just 30 weeks of gestation, Bria has already endured 25 surgeries. “Dr. Pena used to call her Wonder Bria,” explains Brenda, “because she’s beaten so many odds.”

While pregnant, Brenda had been told Bria may be born with a cyst. It turns out, according to Brenda, “She had everything but a cyst.” No prenatal test had ever revealed any of the many complications with which Bria was born.

Immediately upon her birth, Bria needed injections to help her tiny, underdeveloped lungs function properly. It was impossible for the medical staff to suction Bria because her esophagus and her stomach were not connected. The list of anomalies seemed to grow by the minute, all apparently the result of VATER, a complex array of anomalies resulting from a series of genetic defects. The anomalies associated with VATER include vertebral and vascular anomalies, anal atresia, cardiac anomalies, tracheo-esophegeal (T-E) fistula, esophageal artesia, renal anomalies and radial dysplasia. Bria , it seems, received more than her share of VATER-associated issues.

Brenda remembers Bria being whisked away almost immediately after her birth, while she herself was then moved to a hospital ward away from all the other mothers and their new babies. “The rest is a blur,” says Brenda. “I remember the doctors’ voices seemed far, far away. I was asked to sign papers I couldn’t even see.”

It would be two days before Brenda could even see her baby. “They wheeled me in a wheelchair,” recalls Brenda. “Bria was so tiny, just two pounds. She was in an incubator and there were so many tubes I couldn’t even hold her.” When Bria was three days old, Brenda says, “I put my pinkie in her little hand and she squeezed it.” And when it was time for Brenda to leave the hospital, she says, “The hardest thing in the world was for me to be discharged without her.”

Bria spent her first Christmas in an incubator, still fighting for life. Bria’s brother was five and couldn’t understand why his baby sister wasn’t home for Christmas. Brenda says she used to cry so hard. “The nurse said it was okay for me to cry,” says Brenda, “but that I would have to stay strong because Bria Would have to draw her strength from me.”

In helping Bria fight, Brenda says she had to do things she never imagined she would have had the courage to do. Many of the procedures and the follow-up required of Brenda were painful for Bria, but Brenda had to be strong. “It was so painful for her. I had to step outside myself, had to remove myself from who I was in order to help her,” Brenda recalls.

Because Bria was so tiny, her feeding tube was actually heavier than she was. “We had to clamp it to her,” says Bernda. “Sometimes the balloon would deflate and off to the hospital we’d go.” But as Bria got older, Brenda says, “She became more of a fighter. That’s how we knew she was going to be okay.”

Today, Bria appears to be a normal, happy nine-year-old. She plays the guitar and the violin and has been known to bang out a note or two on the piano at Ronald McDonald House. If you ask Bria how many times she’s lived in Ronald McDonald House, she will tell you without missing a beat, “More than you can ever imagine.” And when asked what she likes best, “Every part is nice,” she exclaims. “I play in the art room, read books in the library, go to the exercise and game rooms. And I like to play pool here.”

“This House gives me strength,” Brenda says. “I remember, just when I thought I was the only one on earth whose child was so ill, meeting a family from Africa who had come to see Dr. Pena for the same thing. We drew such strength from each other.”

Bria’s medical journey is far from over. As she continues to seek medical treatment for the many anomalies being addressed, one at a time, both she and her mother are grateful for the “home away from home” they’ve found here at Ronald McDonald House. “We’ve utilized Ronald McDonald House all through Bria’s life,” says Brenda. “They were just always there.”