Windsor
To his 2-month birthday party, Keygan Champ Rohrich wore tiny overalls, a long-sleeve T-shirt and an oxygen tube.
He’s a happy baby, Keygan’s mom, Kathy Rohrich, said, bouncing him on her lap. “He talks to you and smiles at you. I don’t know why we called him Champ. But I think the name fits now.”
Every day, Keygan gamely battles a brain aneurysm, a hole in his heart and hypertension that makes it hard to pump blood to his lungs. Watching him snooze and coo in his mother’s arms, while his dad beams proudly, you’d never guess that he faces a rare and high-risk brain operation, as well as open-heart surgery.
You’d also be hard-pressed to overstate the grace and love his parents show under awful circumstances.
Andy and Kathy Rohrich thought they were having a normal pregnancy. They discovered Keygan’s potentially deadly brain condition on June 29, two days before he was born. They sped from Salida, where both were born, to Colorado Springs, accompanied by an 11-person family caravan.
“The pediatric neurosurgeons weren’t there,” said Kathy, 22. “So they sent us to University Hospital in Denver.”
Kathy and the baby have been away from Salida ever since.
“They told us not to go home until the brain surgery,” said 30-year-old Andy, who lived with his wife in a Denver Ronald McDonald House for a month before returning to his job as a Chaffee County sheriff’s detective.
Keygan may never be able to go back to where his extended family lives. Even if doctors repair the “Vein of Galen malformation” that threatens to rupture in his brain, they “are worried that the altitude in Salida – 7,500 feet – might make his hypertension worse,” Kathy said.
Doctors at The Children’s Hospital no longer need to see Keygan every day. So Kathy and the baby live with her brother in Windsor, elevation 4,800 feet.
Each week, Andy works four 10-hour shifts for the sheriff, then commutes four hours each way to spend the remaining days with his family.
“I can use up a mortgage payment paying for gas,” he said.
Ah, yes, the mortgage. It is based on two incomes. The Rohrichs moved into a house two weeks before Keygan was born. Because Kathy had to quit her weekday job making fasteners and her weekend job as a Salida firefighter, she and Andy risk losing their home.
Health insurance is another huge obstacle. The charge for Keygan’s 26-day stay in neonatal intensive care was $189,000. The Rohrichs aren’t sure how much of that bill or how much of Keygan’s other medical costs will be covered by the health insurance Kathy’s employer once provided. What they do know is that Kathy can’t work outside the home right now. This means a new $700-a-month health insurance payment added on to a mortgage and car payment that they can barely afford on Andy’s income.
For the first time, Andy, who earned a college degree at night, and Kathy, who fought her way from a broken back in a car wreck to be a firefighter, have been forced to ask friends and family for financial help.
“We’ve had to swallow a lot of pride for sure,” said Andy.
Twenty-year-old Niki Argys means to keep the Rohrichs from swallowing too much of their dignity. She’s organized a benefit auction at the Chaffee County Fairgrounds at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23. Argys also has put together a golf tournament at the Salida Golf Club on Sept. 24. It’s a $50- a-person round featuring celebrity athletes Walter Davis and Tyrone Braxton. Call the golf club at 719-539-1060 if you want to play. Call Argys at 303-934-4954 to donate.
Argys lives in Lakewood but grew up in Salida. Kathy Rohrich lived briefly with Argys’ family. They are like sisters.
“Kathy had to go through life the hard way,” Argys said. “But she was the type of person who didn’t expect help. Their careers as a firefighter and a deputy sum up who Kathy and Andy are.”
They are proud public servants praying for a chance to be proud parents.
Jim Spencer’s column usually appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
