This Woman Was Born As A 1-Pound Preemie And Now Works In The Same NICU That Saved Her Life

It’s a crazy, miraculous world we live in folks, and there are hundreds and thousands of crazy miraculous things that happen every single day. For example, there’s to story of Tammy Lewis, who, back in 1985, was born weighing just 1 pound and 4 ounces…

Yep, that’s right, Tammy Lewis weighed a mere 1 pound and 4 ounces after being born 3 1/2 months early way back in 1985. Obviously, because of this, doctors gave Tammy very slim odds of survival, however, after 3 arduous months of care which she was given at the neonatal intensive care unit at Baylor Scott and White McLane Children’s Hospital (talk about a mouthful of a name) located in Temple, Texas, she was strong enough to be sent home.

Now she is 34 years years old, and she works as a registered respiratory therapist at – yep, you guessed it, believe it or not – the very same NICU that incredibly gave her a new chance at life all those many years ago.

“It’s an honor to care for these patients who are there like I was,” Lewis herself proudly told TV show Good Morning America, while also adding that she was at one point considered the smallest baby in Texas. “Then having the reward of [seeing the babies] go home and getting bigger and living a productive life, there’s nothing better than that.”

“I love my job,” she added later on. And who could blame her?

Lewis reported that she was indeed born 3 1/2 months early. Her mom, whose name is Carolyn Lillard, went into preterm labor after scarily experiencing incredibly high blood pressure, which, very clearly put both of their lives in great, great danger.

“They weren’t able to get blood pressures down so the decision was made to go ahead and try and deliver and save hopefully mom and baby,” Lewis continued.

Doctors eventually had to tell Tammy Lewis’ mom that her teeny, tiny daughter had also had a teeny, tiny survival rate of 5 to 10 percent (can you imagine!?). However, if you have any common sense whatsoever, you’ll be very much aware that Lewis did, in fact, beat the odds.

“I’ve heard this story a lot of times growing up,” Lewis said. “I lived locally and close to the hospital. This was the only hospital [job] I wanted to apply for knowing that I wanted to be [working] in this NICU.”

Lewis has since earned an associate degree in respiratory therapy at McLennan Community College which is in Waco, Texas, and began working at Baylor Scott almost 10 whole years ago to this day. Now tell me… how incredible is that?

Even more incredibly so, when Tammy first started back at the NICU, many of the staff who cared for her when she was just a teeny tiny baby who was fighting for her life,  still worked at the hospital, can you believe it!?

“Tammy is one of the most sweet, caring staff we have on the floor and one of the most genuine,” Tara Lyngaas, who is the nurse manager at Baylor Scott’s NICU told GMA. “She told us she still has the scar of the test tubes she had when she was a baby. Other than that, no clue [she was a preemie]. She is so smart and dedicated to our unit. She does amazing work here.”

One of the things I love most about this story is the idea that Tammy took something pretty traumatic that happened to her,  whether she remembers it or not, saw that she was basically given a second chance at life and then used that second chance to pass her blessing onto other children who need all the help they could possibly get too. Absolutely outstanding work!

How do you feel about Tammy Lewis’ story? Do you know of anyone who’s been through something similar to this? Be sure to let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to share this incredibly inspiring story with all your friends and family too! x

 

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