UPDATE!
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/aug...-jupiter-farms-swine/?partner=yahoo_headlines
The baby was beautiful, with tufts of long eyelashes — just like her mother.
But she didn’t cry.
Her heart stopped minutes after doctors delivered her from the belly of Aubrey Opdyke, who had swine flu and lay in a medically induced coma.
Aubrey never had the chance to see her.
So the baby’s grandmother, Joanne Felker of Stuart, readied tiny Parker Christine for photographs and a video.
She bathed her and held her.
“She looks like she’s just peaceful,” Felker said of the images, shot by the volunteer group Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.
One of these days, the family will show the images to Aubrey.
They’ll fill in the blanks about the time she has spent in a coma at Wellington Regional Medical Center, battling a case of H1N1 influenza that took Parker’s life on July 18 — more than two months before she was supposed to be born.
Aubrey, a 27-year-old graduate of South Fork High School who lives in West Palm Beach, has been in the hospital since early this month, when she came down with a sore throat that turned out to be an early sign of swine flu.
Aubrey Felker Opdyke grew up in Jupiter Farms and attended elementary school there. She was in Girl Scouts for 12 years and stayed in Troop 440 in the Farms after moving to Stuart at age 13 with her family, said Nancy Hill, troop leader.
Aubrey received her Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts and then, as an adult, became a member of the Best Friends Club in Jupiter Farms.
She remains in the intensive care unit, but she is making progress, said Joanne Felker, who worked in the Jupiter Farms Elementary School cafeteria for several years.
Now that doctors have eased her off coma-inducing medication, Aubrey can blink in response to visitors.
She indicated that she recognized her husband, Bryan Opdyke, and can wiggle her toes, Hill said.
However, “she’s still a pretty sick little girl,” Hill said. “She’s at the edge of the woods, but she’s not out of the woods yet.”
She has recovered from acute respiratory distress syndrome, and swine flu appears to be gone from her system, Felker said.
“The next thing is getting her breathing on her own,” Felker said.
After that happens, she will need intense physical therapy to recover from weeks of immobility.
Meanwhile, expenses are mounting for Aubrey and her husband, Bryan Opdyke.
Bryan took a leave of absence from his job as a UPS driver to be at Aubrey’s side. Before she fell ill, Aubrey had been working as a waitress in West Palm Beach. Now, they have no income.
To help the family, Aubrey’s former co-workers at Helping People Succeed in Stuart are collecting donations.
“Knowing that she was out of work, and knowing that Bryan was out of work, I knew it was going to be very trying times,” said Chris Danley, a friend and former co-worker of Aubrey’s at Helping People Succeed.
Aubrey was a family support worker at the Stuart nonprofit until last year, when she married Bryan and moved to West Palm Beach. Helping People Succeed provides community-based education and training, including job placement for developmentally challenged adults and mental health counseling for children.
Aubrey has always been drawn to helping people, friends and family said. But she’s also a shy woman who probably will be shocked at the national attention her illness has attracted,
“She doesn’t like being fussed over,” Felker said. “She doesn’t like being center of attention.”
The family decided to go public with Aubrey’s story so other pregnant women with symptoms of swine flu might seek treatment earlier than Aubrey did. She waited several days before going to the hospital. By that point, she was delirious from the high fever.
Pregnant women and young children are more susceptible to the strain of flu.
“This could be your friend, this could be your daughter, this could be your granddaughter,” said Suzy Hutcheson, executive director of Helping People Succeed.
Although she hasn’t been able to speak to her daughter for weeks, Joanne Felker is an enduring optimist.
“It’s going to be a long road, but we’ll take it one step at a time,” Felker said. “I feel like she’s going to be a happier, healthier girl when she comes out.”
