When the U-M Department of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) recently held its bi-annual survivors picnic in Brighton, Mich., a special guest was in attendance.
Former ECMO patient 10-year-old Callandra “Callie” Gottschalk showed up with her family a decade after she received life-saving treatment at U-M. She was among approximately 300 people who attended the picnic including ECMO survivors from 3 months old to 75 years, their families and friends, and ECMO team members.
Ten-year-old Callandra “Callie” Gottschalk shows off the bears she received from U-M’s Survival Flight this summer (left) and 10 years ago. Photo by Denise Gottschalk.
“This is a heartwarming event,” says Dr. Robert Bartlett, who helped invent ECMO in 1980 and now is a professor emeritus of surgery. “It is amazing to see so many people who have been helped over the years by ECMO at the University of Michigan.”
The U-M ECMO program, the first one in the country, was established in 1980. The program had its first ECMO patient in 1981 and will soon treat its 2,000th patient.
ECMO is a form of mechanical cardiopulmonary support that can be used during cardiac and/or respiratory failure in newborns, pediatrics and adults. ECMO pumps the blood out of the body, takes CO2 and other gases out of the blood, adds oxygen and then pumps the blood back into the body. It is used with patients whose heart and lungs are not able to function normally.
Former ECMO patient Callandra “Callie” Gottschalk was born in April 2000 in the Upper Peninsula town of Laurium. Diagnosed with meconium aspiration, a condition in which a newborn inhales an intestinal discharge, her first days of life were difficult. She was transported soon after birth to Marquette General, the nearest facility with an advanced neonatal intensive care unit.
Callie’s condition needed even more advanced care, and U-M Survival Flight transported her to U-M’s Holden NICU. She spent 11 days on ECMO, and by the end of May 2000, she was doing well enough to be moved closer to home. When Survival Flight flew her back to the Marquette General NICU, she received a souvenir Survival Flight stuffed bear. Denise Gottschalk, Callie’s mother, says that bear became a favorite companion and a symbol of her recovery.
Last November, nearly 10 years after her illness, a Survival Flight team flew its new fixed wing aircraft to the Upper Peninsula. It was on display at an airport near her home, so Callie and her family came out to see it.
Clutching her well-loved bear, Callie and her family showed off baby photos of the Holden NICU and the U-M staff that cared for her. Now healthy, only a small scar gives any indication of the severity of her childhood illness.
This year Callie and her mother returned to U-M for the first time to attend the ECMO picnic, thanks to the Family Hope gift fund set up by Detroit Tiger Brandon Inge and his family.
The day before the picnic, Callie and her mother spent several hours at the University Hospital touring Survival Flight operations and the Holden NICU. They met pilots, communication specialists, nurses and nurse practitioners, including several who were involved in her transport and care 10 years earlier.
The next day, the Gottschalks attended the ECMO picnic with many other former ECMO patients and families. When the weekend was over, Callie and her mother returned to the Upper Peninsula with an additional passenger: a new Survival Flight bear.
