LYNN — A not-so-Secret Santa gave a Lynn couple and their infant son the gift of confidence this Christmas.
Suffolk Construction purchased a suction aspiration unit, a medical device used to extract mucus and other bodily fluids, for Stephen McInerney and his parents after reading about Stephen’s medical complications in a story in The Item in November.
Stephen, 11 months old, was born prematurely at 25 weeks. He needs the machine to help clear mucus from his trachea because he is unable to cough it up himself, said his mother, Lianne.
“It’s so important because if the one that we already have dies, there’s no way to get the mucus out,” said Lianne, a teacher at Washington Elementary School. “The equipment he uses is rather pricey. We couldn’t go out and get a second one. To have that kind of burden of something else taken off our plate was amazing and so generous.”
The DeVilbiss Portable Suction machine is valued between $250 and $300. It will provide Stephen and his parents the flexibility of going on extended adventures as a family, she said, and it came in handy when she hosted 10 people for Christmas.
“He has gotten so much bigger and has made so much progress being home,” said Lianne. “He is laughing and smiling all the time. He loved looking at the Christmas lights and we opened presents from Santa. He loved the crinkle of the paper. We even sat on the porch and watched the (Christmas Eve) parade. He loved looking at all the floats and it was incredible that we could sit together as a family and watch a parade. That’s something every parent wants to be able to do.”
She and her husband Dave brought Stephen home from Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton, where the infant was battling for his life since birth, just in time for Thanksgiving.
Stephen was born in January, during the 25th week of Lianne’s pregnancy. Weighing just 13 ounces at birth and suffering from a brain bleed, the couple was told he had a 50-50 chance at survival. There were many times Stephen’s parents were called into the hospital because they thought he wouldn’t survive.
Lianne and Dave could not hold their son for the first six weeks of his life.
Stephen had a tracheostomy, a surgical procedure in which an incision is made in the neck that opens a direct airway through the trachea, and remained at Boston Children’s Hospital for about five weeks after the surgery. Then he went to Franciscan Children’s, where he made the most progress before finally being sent home mid-November.
When the chief operating officer of Suffolk Construction read about Stephen and his parents in The Item, the company reached out to Franciscan Children’s to find out what they could do to help.
“Over Thanksgiving, our COO of Suffolk, Shawn Seaman, saw the story about the McInerney family and their son Stephen’s courageous battle to be home for his first holiday after being born prematurely 10 months prior,” said Kate Sheridan, director of employee engagement at Suffolk. “Shawn approached Suffolk’s employee-led Giving Circle board to ask if we could help and we knew right away that we wanted to provide support to this brave family during such a challenging time.”
