Connie's BIRTH day

Mom's remembrances of the birth of Connie:

Connie Jean Jackson was born on May 8, 1967 in Palmer, Alaska.  We had lived in Anchorage and Ketchikan and then moved back to Palmer before she was born.  (We left Anchorage because of the earthquake in 1964).  She was born in the little hospital in Palmer.  She was a happy baby, but didn’t seem to grow very fast and seemed to spike fevers quite often. Sometimes causing seizures.  Of course we thought of ear infections and that kind of stuff, but it was never diagnosed as that.  When she was about 20 months old she was still spiking these fevers and we had been transferred to Kotzebue, Alaska, a small native village 30 miles above the Arctic Circle.  We lived in the hospital compound so whenever she spiked a fever I would run her over to the hospital and they would bring the fever down and give her antibiotics and she would be fine for a while.  

The mission president for the state of Alaska, Arza Hinckley, came to visit us and while he was there Connie had an episode.  After we got her fever down, etc., he gave her a blessing and told her that she would have her illness diagnosed and be taken care of.

Within days a fever spiked again and she started into seizures I ran her over to the hospital and there was a new doctor (a pediatrician) there who was  TDY from Anchorage.  When he examined her he told us that he had just gone to a conference where they had learned about a procedure and if what he thought was true, the procedure could help her.  So we were sent to Anchorage where she had some tests done and his diagnoses was right.  We were told that there were two doctors in the US who did this special surgery, one at the Mao Clinic and one at Stanford Medical Center.  We chose Stanford and the Public Health Service moved us to Shurz, Nevada where we could be close to Standford.  Connie had the surgery and the problem was resolved and she has been strong and healthy ever since.  The blessings of the Lord!