‘We Didn’t Want to Name Them at First …’
When Dave Brandon’s twin sons, Chris and Nick, were nearing their high school graduation in 1999, they asked their dad if they could take part in senior skip day. “You can skip tomorrow, but I want you to give me the first two hours of the day,” he told them. “Put on some nice clothes and we’ll take a little trip.”
Their destination was the neonatal intensive care unit at Mott Hospital, where they had been rushed shortly after their birth 18 years before. Chris had been stealing blood from his brother in the womb, more than his body could circulate, while his brother was dangerously anemic.
“It’s a very rare dysfunction that only occurs in the case of identical twins,” says Brandon. “As we later learned, the survival rate for premature babies born in Chris’s condition was 30 percent. Nick’s was a bit higher, but he was also in trouble.”
The resident on duty had recently completed a research project on this disorder. “He took one look at them and knew exactly what it was and exactly what to do,” Brandon says. It took weeks to balance their blood levels and make sure their hearts and lungs were functioning properly.
“This doctor just did a phenomenal job, saved them in their moment of crisis, brought them to the point where they left as healthy babies,” he says. “We didn’t want to name them at first because, frankly, we didn’t think they were going to live.”
They were known only as Brandon Boy A and Brandon Boy B until “a nurse said, you know, it’s just about time we named these boys, and that was the moment when I kind of concluded that they were going to make it.”
Now they were back where they started, looking through the same window their father had stood in front of 18 years before. “They had heard stories, but didn’t connect with it directly,” Brandon says. “Now I could tell them here’s where it started. Here are the people who saved your lives. If this wasn’t here, you wouldn’t be alive.”
A nurse appeared and asked what they were doing. After Brandon explained, she asked how old they were. “When I told her, she looked at me and said, ‘Brandon Boy A and Brandon Boy B.’ She remembered what was wrong with them, how much trouble they were in, then she’s hugging the boys and she’s got tears running down her face. She looks at me and says, ‘They never come back. I’m so appreciative that you brought them back.’ I don’t know who was more emotional, me or her, but it was pretty amazing.”
Brandon says it was “an honor and a privilege” for him and his wife, Jan, to make the gift that ensured that the neonatal intensive care unit in the new Mott will be named for their sons. “The first thing I’m going to do when the new hospital opens,” he says, “is go up to that floor with Nick and Chris and their wives and Jan and celebrate something that’s going to help God knows how many kids and their parents.” —JM