Never stop giving
Published: April 20, 2006
Sophia Fettig, 12, is a giver. Even as her future remained uncertain as she lay in the pediatrics unit at North Colorado Medical Center suffering from a second stroke, Sophia continued to bless others.
The seventh-grader at Heath Middle School, who dislikes for children to be teased, donated about 10 inches of her curly brown mane Monday to Locks of Love, an organization that makes hair prosthetics for children and teenagers suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Sophia couldn’t say it, because the May 26 stroke left her unable to communicate, but everybody knew it is what she wanted.
Hairstylist Bev Benge, who often does hair for shut-ins or people who just can’t get around, cut Sophia’s ponytail, and her family placed it in a Ziploc bag to send off.
Sophia has always had a giving spirit, her mother, Tracey Bohner said.
Sophia donated her first ponytail after the first stroke, when she was 8, and she saw bald cancer patients at Children’s Hospital in Denver, where she went for treatment.
While her parents grappled with the frightening reality that their youngest child of six had suffered a stroke, Sophia was scheming how to help other children. So she offered her hair.
Sophia was growing it out again to donate another ponytail when the second stroke hit.
Childhood stroke seems like an oxymoron, but according to pediatricstroke.org, it affects six in 100,000 children annually. Stroke also makes the top 10 causes of death in children, according to the organization.
Sophia suffers from prothrombin mutation, which her mother describes as a blood clotting disorder. But the family was unaware of it until after Sophia’s first stroke. She complained of a headache and body aches so the family thought she had the flu.
Next thing they knew, she was projectile vomiting, seizing and being airlifted to Children’s. She was in a coma for five days.
But Sophia recovered. Although the seizures continued, she could walk, talk and function normally. Doctors eventually took her off the blood thinners.
“This time we weren’t so lucky,” Bohner said. “She can’t walk, talk. She is doing physical therapy and fighting a fever we can’t trace. She doesn’t eat.”
Children’s Hospital couldn’t help her the second time. Sophia was sent to nearby University Hospital where doctors spent three days in surgery, clearing blood clots. She has been since moved to NCMC where she is closer to her Greeley home.
Bohner is uncertain if Sophia will be the girl who at one time never quit talking and loved to play. She makes noises and watches cartoons, but her family remains hopeful.
And, even in a vulnerable state, Sophia is still giving to others. That is one characteristic that hasn’t been lost.
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