UI Health Care treats Dyersville family’s wide range of specialty care issues all in one place

A rare childhood cancer. A complicated pregnancy. A premature birth. Hair loss from alopecia.

For Ashley and Nate Hall’s family, the past couple years have been challenging. One after another, four different family members were diagnosed with a new health issue within a span of about a year.

Thankfully, the Halls were all able to be treated at University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital and UI Hospitals & Clinics, teaching them first-hand how important being in the right place can be.

“You never want to be sick and need to go to Iowa City for care, but it’s the best place you can be,” Ashley says. “We walked through so many doors with so many doctors and our outcomes have always been the best they could be. People trust the doctors there because they know they are the best.”

Around the same time James was diagnosed, Nate and Ashley learned they were expecting their fourth child.

At a 20-week ultrasound at her local hospital in Dubuque, Ashley was told she had placenta accreta, a serious condition that occurs when the placenta grows deeply into the uterine wall. Her local doctors were concerned and forwarded her scans to doctors at UI Hospitals & Clinics, who determined Ashley should prepare to deliver at 30 weeks.

“We needed to get the placenta out before it connected to any of my major organs,” she says. “It was already pretty close to my bladder at 20 weeks.”

Ashley had transferred her care to UI Hospitals & Clinics, and she received ultrasounds every week to monitor her condition. She was admitted to keep her close to the medical care she would need.

“My uterus was like Swiss cheese – even if I had been a mile away when I went into labor I had a risk of dying,” she says. “I lost five liters of blood in surgery, and that was just in a room with tons of people who knew what they were doing. I had to be fully prepared for that, and luckily I was.”

Her son, Lavon – Vonnie – was born Oct. 27, 2021 at 27 weeks, 6 days gestation, and stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the children’s hospital for a little over two months, when he was stable enough to be transferred to a hospital closer to home. Once discharged, he went home and was on oxygen for a week.

Twelve months. Nearly a dozen specialty divisions. Countless inpatient visits. All in one location.

Everyone in the family is doing well now. James finished his chemotherapy treatments after 12 months, and Vonnie was released from the hospital in Dubuque in January.

“University of Iowa just has the right people to take care of it all,” Ashley says. “I can’t put into words just how comforting it is at terrible times knowing you can put complete trust in your doctors.”