Mother’s Recovery From Coma Is Holiday ‘Miracle’ : Health: Corona woman had a 1% chance of survival after twins’ birth. Now she will see their 1st Yule.

A woman who fell into a five-week coma after the birth of twin girls is back home preparing for Christmas, after her family was told she had only a 1% chance for survival.

In a recovery that doctors, family and friends describe as miraculous, Dawna Munson has been reunited with her husband and four children in time for the twins’ first Christmas--a holiday few thought she’d ever live to see.

“In many ways, we feel this is pretty much a miracle,” said Dr. Kevin Owyang, a Fullerton family practice specialist who has been treating Munson for the past month for the frequently fatal toxemia disorder called “HELLP Syndrome.” “She has come a long way--so far that her turnaround and even survival is uncommon.”

At the darkest point of her battle with the rare form of toxemia, Munson barely clung to life, attached to myriad breathing and feeding tubes, while as many as 20 physicians and consultants--from as far away as Europe--tried to treat the disorder.

Today, Munson remembers little more than vivid dreams of repeated and unsuccessful attempts to find her way back home.

“In my dreams, I would be on a plane or a train and I would be almost home, then I would find myself in India or someplace far away,” said the 34-year-old mother. “I felt like Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ”

“In my dreams, years were passing by, my family was growing up and I couldn’t find them. I was so happy when (the nurse) said the year was 1991.”

Originally scheduled for release last Thursday from St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, where she had been assigned to a rehabilitation regime, Munson again beat the odds and was able to walk out of the hospital late last month. Other than her slow, fragile stride, the only visible sign from the month she spent in UC Irvine’s intensive-care ward is the purple scar on her neck where a respirator helped keep her alive.

“All I know is, that is no way to live,” Munson said, watching her infant twin daughters, Haley and Skyler, rocking on an indoor swing.

Munson’s ordeal started shortly after giving birth Aug. 9 at the Placentia-Linda Community Hospital. Munson and her husband, David, were preparing to celebrate the occasion with room-service dinner when she was overcome by chest pains so intense that it rendered her unable to speak.

Within hours, her liver ruptured, her kidneys shut down and her lungs flooded. She said the condition caused her to bloat to more than 100 pounds above her normal weight of 115.

“I don’t remember much of the pain, but I vaguely recall the helicopter taking me away (from Placentia-Linda),” she said.

In the days that followed, her worsening condition drew a score of doctors and consultants who tried to treat the disorder, which Owyang said strikes less than 6% of women after delivery, many of whom die.

“I had breakfast with a good friend the other day and she told me that a social worker had told her then to say her final goodby while I was in the hospital,” Munson said. “Being here today and hearing things like that . . . it must truly be a miracle.”

While her husband and other family members split time at the hospital, news of Munson’s condition circulated through the family’s Corona subdivision, where neighbors worked in shifts to keep the Munson household running.

For a full month, 13 families took turns preparing meals for David Munson and the two older children, Will, 5, and McKenna, 2. While David interviewed candidates to help with the children, the neighbors assigned themselves to work in shifts, around the clock, to provide interim child care.

They established a benefit fund for the family at a local bank, which Dawna Munson said has collected about $20,000 in donations for future child care and medical expenses. Although much of the medical bills are covered by health insurance, she said the family will be paying deductibles on a total bill that recently surpassed $1.5 million.

“I have the best neighbors on Earth,” she said. “I have been just so touched by all the people who have done so much. You go through life and you don’t think that you touch that many people. I didn’t think I mattered to that many people.”

Munson regained consciousness in mid-September. She continued to improve and was moved to St. Jude in October. Since her release last month, she has returned three times a week for physical therapy and can feel her strength gradually returning. She said doctors tell her a full recovery should take a year.

But what Munson said is lost forever are the days and weeks with her twin daughters right after they were born.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to put together that they are my babies,” she said. “It was like I was handed somebody else’s children. I look at them, and I can’t believe I had these babies. I missed my husband and my children so much.”

Also gone, she said, is her “fanatical” attention to housekeeping chores and limited patience.

“This has changed my whole sense of priorities,” she said. “My friends say I am a lot calmer now. I can’t help but think every day, God, I’ve got my life.”