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With twins born, Lowellville grad moves toward recovery from kidney failure
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
LOWELLVILLE
As on most Saturdays, Helen Bond spent Oct. 19 in dialysis.
It was something she’d gotten used to in the past few months, since a diagnosis of acute renal failure in June forced her to spend three hours a day, five or six days a week, undergoing the treatment.
But Oct. 19 turned out to be an atypical Saturday.
In the midst of dialysis, the 32-year-old, who was seven months pregnant with twin boys, went into labor. Less than a week later, after prematurely delivering Noah and Jase — born weighing 1 pound, 14 ounces, and 2 pounds, 6 ounces, respectively — Bond received a phone call from her doctor.
“They said I no longer needed dialysis, and that my kidneys were improving,” she said. “I was in shock, I was amazed, I was happy. I didn’t know how I was going to take care of twins and go to dialysis. It was one less thing I had to worry about.”
Since stopping dialysis, Bond has lost about 60 pounds of water weight and is back to her pre-pregnancy weight, with just a swollen face — which will “take some time to go away,” she said — as a reminder of her illness.
She’s also not taking “a ton” of medications anymore, but is still having problems walking and standing for any longer than five or 10 minutes, and isn’t allowed to drive. That’s what is preventing her from again working for her uncle at Roberto’s Italian Ristorante.
She acknowledged that she probably wouldn’t be able to return “any time soon.”
“I’d love to see my health continue to go back to the way I was before I got sick,” said Bond, a 1999 graduate of Lowellville High School. “Being able to go back to work would be a blessing.”
Though the past few months have been “like living in a nightmare that you can’t wake up from,” Bond said she feels grateful that, for one, her health is improving, and, two, that the twins’ overall health is better than she anticipated.
Both Noah and Jase remain in the hospital, but are gaining weight.
Noah, who is at St. Elizabeth Health Center and requires a continuous positive airway pressure machine, is up to 2 pounds, 10 ounces. His twin brother weighs 3 pounds, but is at Akron Children’s Hospital after two emergency surgeries — one for a bowel obstruction, another for a hole in his stomach.
Bond is the only one who can hold them, aside from the doctors and nurses, and they won’t be able to go home until they each meet certain criteria, like weighing more than 4 pounds.
She’s hopeful that the twins will be able to come home for Christmas — something that her 11-year-old son, Dylan Bond, wished for in his letter to Santa, along with his mother to be healthy again. Bond is also the mother of 14-year-old Alyssa Guerrieri.
It’s been several months since her diagnosis, but doctors still can’t pin down what, exactly, caused Bond’s sudden illness. They have, however, told her it could return, but that they’d be able to treat it more aggressively, because she’s no longer pregnant.
In the meantime, they’re watching closely, while Bond is inching toward recovery.
“I don’t need to go through that again,” she said. “But I appreciate everything that people have done for me and what people continue to do for me. The support has just been amazing.”
Bond’s mother, Debbie Fraticelli of Boardman, said she’s glad to see her daughter getting back to being herself, and her life slowly returning to normal — or more normal than it had been. She added that the “Benefit for Helen Jane Bond” account at Huntington Bank remains open, and will likely stay that way until Bond can return to work.
Like her daughter, Fraticelli emphasized that donations gathered by way of the Huntington Bank account and through a spaghetti dinner in August have meant a lot to the family.
“Everything — believe me — helped,” she said.