MCH celebrates

The little boy dressed up in his pirate uniform to fit the Medical Center Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit reunion theme.

He grabbed the microphone and showed off one talent Saturday. His mother was off to the side proudly observing.

He had a joke for the audience, which broke from carnival-style games to listen.

“Why was six scared of seven?” he asked.

Long pause.

The punch line: “Because seven eight nine.”

Next came the polite laughter.

T.J. Shands has made it. Made it enough to eagerly show off his comedic side in the MCH lobby during a celebration of little lives that started off precariously premature but have ended up thriving.

T.J. was born 1 pound, 12 ounces. He was a half inch longer than a grade-school ruler and about three months early.

He spent his first three months surrounded by nurses and machines. Six weeks in, doctors said it: death. It was possible, they told T.J.’s mother, Michelle Peugh.

“It was the first time they had ever used the word,” she said.

Saturday, his mother handed the NICU nurses a wallet-sized, first-grade portrait.

T.J. is 8 and lives in Stanton.

He’s like so many other little boys and girls that ran around the hospital lobby, throwing beanbags and playing miniature golf.

There was Denver Red O’Dell, a 14-month-old future cowboy who weighed 3 pounds, 4 ounces when he was born, his mother, Kandra O’Dell, said.

Down the hallway, Jordan Gray played. He was born at 27 weeks and 2 pounds, 3 ounces. He’s 3 now.

And Jayson and April Myers sat in a dual stroller. They came a minute apart, about three months early and on their parents’ first wedding anniversary. They’re 12 months old and like to eat cookies.

Jayson and April were Kenneth Myers’ first children. Kenneth was born premature, too, and

was one of the first children in MCH’s neonatal ICU.

“I celebrate every day that I get to have an opportunity with them here,” Kenneth said.

ON THE NET:

>> Children’s Miracle Network: www.childrensmiraclenetwork.org

>> www.mchodessa.com