Holiday Homecoming Giving Thanks For A Young Boy’s Recovery

Prayers written on paper hearts are dropped daily into a basket in Mrs. Shupe’s fifth-grade classroom. Usually they’re for Brian Prawdzik.

Since his heart failed last summer, classmates at All Saints School have asked God that Brian receive a new heart. They’ve asked God to make Brian well.

And sometimes they’ve asked their teacher: How could God let a 10-year-old get sick?

Even Brian’s mother, her faith as solid as the foundation of St. Peter’s Catholic Church, felt her faith tremble as her son survived a heart transplant only to nearly die twice from infections.

“Brian had been hit and hit and hit again,” Jan Prawdzik said. “I prayed for relief.”

Relief came this week. After months in Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Brian came home for Christmas.

There was silence as the fifth-grader walked slowly into Linda Shupe’s classroom Monday, and classmates took in his changed appearance, his cane, his thin frame.

Tuesday as he walked in, there was only joy.

“Hey Brian, we have to see ‘Ace Ventura 2,”’ said friend Jake Bolinger.

“I’d like to see that, too,” offered Mrs. Shupe.

“It’s not a teacher movie,” Bolinger said as a circle of boys closed in around Brian.

When Brian was gone, prayers for him were often the first and last act of the day for students.

“We always kept his desk in the classroom,” Shupe said. “They’d write him letters and say: ‘Now you’re sitting by me.”’

Brian’s ordeal began after soccer camp in July, when the seemingly healthy child suffered congestive heart failure due to a genetic defect.

His parents, Jan, a medical technologist at Deaconess Medical Center, and Steve, a major in the U.S. Air Force, temporarily relocated to California for Brian’s treatment.

He received a new heart Sept. 4 and recovered faster than any transplant patient there his age. Within two days he was playing cards with his sister, Laura, 13. Within 11 days, he was out of the hospital.

Then, on a Sunday night four weeks later, Brian’s temperature began to rise.

When anti-rejection drugs failed to stop his decline, he was rushed into intensive care. “It was a roller coaster from there on out,” his mother said.

Apparently Brian, who had intravenous lines in his neck, groin and foot, developed a yeast infection in his blood. He went on the drug amphotericin B - what the family called “amphoterrible” - a powerful remedy that drove his blood pressure skyward and caused severe anemia while fighting the infection.

As his body fought his new heart, Brian was listed for another transplant. Doctors considered putting him on a device that would pump the blood externally to help his ailing kidneys and liver.

His parents worked in shifts, his mother staying with him during the day, his father during the night. They took two-hour power naps so they could be there when Brian called out.

“He’s uncomfortable; he’s got IV lines all over the place; all I can do is try to console him,” his father reported to friends back home.

Then, after seven weeks of bed-rest in the hospital, he went into septic shock. A new bacterial infection caused his blood pressure to plummet and his temperature to hit 104 degrees. As doctors worked feverishly to restore his circulation, his parents were asked to leave the room.

Outside, a doctor told Jan they could lose him, and then the doctor began to cry.

“I was at the end of my rope,” Jan said. “I was just so sick of seeing my little boy sick and in that bed. I was so scared, I was hysterical.”

In Spokane, All Saints students prayed and again asked their teacher why?

She told them that God has something in mind for each person and that while they may not understand why Brian got sick, they must know that his suffering would touch many people in different ways.

Shupe knew, for instance, that her own faith had been greatly strengthened just watching Brian’s parents. And as the class discussed Brian, she sensed a heart surgeon might someday emerge from the group.

His parish priest, Father Eugene Tracy, prayed for healing for Brian and the grace to see that his suffering had value. He’d already seen how much faith Brian seemed to have.

Why do such things happen? His parents wondered.

“We learn from it, we get closer to God, whether we understand it or not,” Steve Prawdzik said. “Just to be able to accept it and cope with it, we’re better for it.”

Brian began improving. On Dec. 17, in time for Brian’s favorite season, they drove home.

Today they give thanks. To the 11-year-old boy who donated his heart to Brian after he died in surgery. To the Prawdziks’ employers and co-workers who paid their salaries and donated sick leave so they could care for their son.

To the Putmans, strangers who through a California parish loaned them a cottage for their stay; and to medical professionals in Spokane and California.

To parishioners at St. Peter’s who offered prayers and money; and All Saints students like the Campfire Girls who sold heart-shaped sachets to raise money, the teachers who brought transplant specialists to talk about Brian’s experience.

And they’re grateful for friends who placed prayers in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, came to California to visit, cleaned up the Prawdziks’ Spokane basement when it flooded and emptied rotting food from a freezer that failed. Who slipped into the home and decorated a Christmas tree for their homecoming.

Now the family is adjusting to Brian’s schedule of taking 50 pills a day. They need to find a tutor, schedule physical therapy, begin thinking about Bloomsday. Doctors believe Brian will again play soccer.

With so little time for shopping, the family won’t exchange presents until Epiphany, Jan. 6. But they’ll hold each hour up like a priceless ornament. They unwrap each morning like a present.

“This is the gift,” said his mother.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo