PHOTO/Courtesy of Rock Solomon

Aurora Phoenix Solomon is taking more breaths on her own.

 

Aurora Phoenix celebrates one month

BY RALPH MORROW

KONK LIFE MANAGING EDITOR

Happy Birthday, Aurora Phoenix, the daughter of Rock and Michelle Solomon who turned one month old on Thursday at South Miami Hospital.

Identical twin sisters Aria and Aurora were born over three months premature after a sudden onset of TTTS on Aug. 18. Their mother was air lifted from Key West to Miami but Aria had already died, and an emergency surgery was needed to save her sister, who weighed under 1 pound. Her parents gave her the middle name of Phoenix, hoping that she rises like a flame from the ashes of her twin sister. Aurora is expected to be in the hospital for the rest of 2014.

Her parents relocated from Key West to be closer to their surviving daughter. With the medical bills and the costs of living in Miami, coupled with a loss of work, they have started a GoFundMe to help pay the expenses. Seventy-four persons have donated $5,711 of the $15,000 goal.

“Thank you everyone for all your support, prayers and positive vibes,” said her father. “People have donated time, money, resources and love for a month now, and we cannot say thank you enough.

“I have been watching the screen of the breathing machine Aurora is hooked up to since the day she was born. It has a spiky green line that moves across from left to right, measuring each breath she takes. I noticed that every once in a long while, the green line would turn purple on a breath. It was rare and inconsistent, but over a couple weeks of watching this screen, I realized that the purple line was appearing more and more often. Now, three weeks later, it would sometimes happen 5 or 6 times in a row. I finally worked up the courage to ask the nurse about it, fearing the worst.

“She said that the machine will breathe for her, but only when she is not taking a breath on her own. It is designed to sense if Aurora is about to take her own breath, and If she is, it pauses and lets her take that breath without any help. If the machine senses that she has stopped breathing, it then breathes for her, one breath at a time.

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