Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 20, 1995 TAG: 9509200017
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
June 27, a Tuesday, started off normally for Terrill and Valerie Flora.
Terrill had the day off from his job as a firefighter at No. 7 station in Roanoke. He planned to run errands. Valerie, as usual, headed to her secretarial job at Carter Machinery, stopping at the day-care center to drop off Michelle, 5, and Aaron, 31/2 months.
Valerie had been back at work only five weeks since Aaron's birth, but the routine of getting two children to day care by 7:30 in the morning was settling in. Michelle would go with her mother to the infant room at the center so she could say goodbye to her brother, then join the older children in another part of the center.
``We left him happy,'' Valerie said.
Four hours later, Aaron was dead.
A day-care worker gave Aaron a bottle about 11, then put him down for a nap. He died in his sleep, the victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
SIDS is the major killer of babies between 1 month and 1 year old. It takes the lives of one in every 500 babies born in America, about one baby every hour. In 1993, the latest year for which figures are available, SIDS killed 112 babies in Virginia.
Aaron became one of the statistics when attempts to revive him failed after a day-care worker discovered he wasn't breathing.
Terrill and Valerie Flora believe the day-care staff did all it could for Aaron, and they didn't want the name of the center used in a story. They said workers at the facility, which Michelle still attends, made valiant efforts to reach the family the day Aaron died.
Terrill's co-workers at the fire station got a call that Aaron was having trouble breathing and had been taken to Community Hospital. They were able to locate Terrill, who rushed to the hospital and found his mother-in-law, Joyce Davis, already there. The day-care center had also called her.
It was 45 minutes later, however, before Valerie got the message and joined them. She had been away from the plant at lunch when the call came that her son was in trouble. She said she has been comforted, though, by something a hospital worker told her at the funeral.
After Aaron was pronounced dead, the hospital employee sat and held him until Valerie arrived.
``She said she didn't want him to be alone,'' Valerie said.
The Floras praised the efforts of everyone, from the staff at the day-care center to the strangers who called to relate similar experiences and share the family's grief. Now, they want to find ways to give meaning to Aaron's death.
``It's terrible to know more about what can kill your baby after you bury him than while he's alive,'' Valerie said.
One of the strangers who contacted the Floras was a man who also worked at Carter Machinery. When he heard about Aaron's death, he called to say he and his wife had lost a child to SIDS. He put the Floras in touch with the American SIDS Institute in Atlanta, which does research on the syndrome and provides a support network for parents of victims.
Saturday, the Floras will have a yard sale at Northview United Methodist Church to raise money for the institute. Co-workers, family, church members and strangers who heard about the effort have donated large appliances, fancy rugs and a variety of items.
So that there will be no doubt about the purpose of the sale, Valerie will wear a sweat shirt she has embossed with Aaron's photograph and birth and death dates.
``I'm going to hit them in the heart, if I can,'' she said.
The couple also will distribute brochures about SIDS and the institute's work.
The Floras said the sale is part of their therapy. If they can't help Aaron anymore, perhaps they can help other babies.
Valerie also plans to write an open letter to pediatricians encouraging them to discuss SIDS in detail with parents.
Her pediatrician never mentioned SIDS, she said. She had told the doctor that Aaron had sleep apnea, where he would stop breathing for short periods of time, and was told that was normal in newborns.
While brief apnea experiences can be normal, apnea episodes that last longer than 15 seconds are among symptoms that suggest increased risk for SIDS, according to institute literature. Other symptoms are a sudden episode of breathing difficulty, blueness or paleness with a ``not-breathing'' episode, or difficulty in breathing and excessive gagging or choking during feeding.
The only thing the Floras knew about SIDS, Valerie said, was from a brochure she was given at the hospital when Aaron was born.
``I read it, and all I got out of it was to put him on his back to sleep, and you don't have to worry,'' Valerie said. ``He died on his back.''
She worries that because there is no known cure for or way to prevent SIDS, doctors don't talk about it because they don't want to scare parents.
``I know if they told all parents, it still won't change anything, but if no one knows, then how will we get the money for research?'' she said.
Valerie and Terrill have chosen to speak bluntly about their son's death in the hope that it will save some other infant or make other parents' similar experiences less harsh.
Because there was no obvious cause for Aaron's death, the Floras said they understood the need for an autopsy and for an investigation of them and the center, but these things were tough to go through.
Aaron's room is still as it was, newly washed diapers folded as they were that Tuesday.
``It's not like we make a mausoleum out of it,'' Terrill said. ``We just can't deal with it yet.''
Their daughter, Michelle, has been told that her brother has gone to heaven. She doesn't talk about him much, but Valerie and Terrill know she thinks about him.
On a recent night, when the three of them sat down for dinner, Valerie said Michelle looked across at the fourth chair and remarked, ``That's where Aaron was going to sit.''
``A lot of people think we sit around and cry,'' Valerie said. ``We do cry, but we celebrate having him.''
Saturday's sale will run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Northview United Methodist Church is on Plantation Road.
by CNB