Almost 5 years old now, Kendall Paciorek is right on track. She can walk, run, talk and say her ABCs. And while that normal progression of abilities common to many children her age might not seem all that impressive, to her mother and father Michelle Wakley-Paciorek and Dave Paciorek, it’s “a miracle.”
Little Kendall was born three months premature on Sept. 21, 2011. Her early arrival was one result of a Listeria infection contracted from her mother who had eaten some contaminated cantaloupe the previous month. When she was born, the doctors warned her parents about all sorts of dire medical complications that she could develop: blindness, deafness, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and others.
The dire prognosis was offered even before the doctors ran blood tests and discovered something even more troubling: Both mother and daughter had listeriosis, a foodborne disease. They had suspected that Michelle had an infection of some sort, but didn’t know what it was until getting the results of the blood tests.
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