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That was all she needed to hear.
Conque was given the green light to bring this baby to safety, but what seemed like an easy decision was anything but simple.
And she got what she was looking for.
When Conque returned to the house, Nika was alone again.
But the struggle to save this baby was far from over.
Nika, 2, is nothing short of "Wonder Woman."
In the midst of everything, Nika was diagnosed with another lethal condition: hydranencephaly. Much of her brain is missing, and in its place is spinal fluid This was most likely due to a stroke suffered in utero.
The odds were stacked against little Nika. She desperately needed another drainage for the fluid in her brain, but the hospital refused to put her on the list due to her poor prognosis.
But Conque refused to stop fighting for this baby’s life – and she soon found her godsend.
And so far, she has.
Nika, 2, is thriving after being rescued by Sarah Conque.
Perseverance paid off, but the roller coaster continued.
On Feb. 19, 2015, months after doctors predicted she would die, Conque became Nika’s legal guardian. But the baby's head was getting larger and larger. She desperately needed another shunt and was not going to get it in Haiti. Again, Conque reached out to the doctor in Alabama who helped before, and he located a childr...
On May 19, 2015, Nika and Conque boarded a plane and headed home to America, and Nika underwent surgery.
After a month in the hospital – during which time all services were performed pro bono – one of the pediatricians invited Nika, Conque and her boyfriend (who accompanied them on the journey) to live in her home. This allowed Nika to remain close to the hospital that was giving her care.
And that’s what she has been doing ever since.
Baby Nika celebrated her second birthday in September.
At the end of July, the family came home to Carencro.
Because she’s Nika’s full-time caregiver, Conque is unable to work and relies fully on donations for living expenses.
But for now, she’s dedicating her life to saving someone else’s.
What’s the prognosis for Nika?
Conque is eternally grateful for those around the world who have rallied for baby Nika.
Although there’s no treatment to bring back the missing pieces of her brain, she’s overcome so much, and Conque will never, ever stop fighting.
To follow Nika's journey, visit www.littlewarriornika.com.
Ask an Agent: Ready to Apply to the FBI?
The FBI is looking for competitive candidates who are looking to make a difference here at home and around the world—but are you up to the challenge of becoming a special agent?
Join FBI Portland for our first "Ask an Agent: Ready to Apply to the FBI?" event taking place in downtown Portland on Tuesday, December 12.
OTTAWA—One of Washington’s most influential lobbying firms made thousands of dollars in political contributions to key U.S. lawmakers last year as it worked on behalf of the Alberta government to drum up congressional support for the Keystone XL pipeline, documents reveal.
Chronicling meetings and luncheons between lobbyists and congressional staffers, the U.S. government records offer a glimpse into Alberta’s efforts to promote a project that is facing a growing number of hurdles across the border.
Kelly Bingel, a lobbyist with Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc., met with members of the staff of 20 U.S. senators between March and May 2013 to “better articulate the benefit of Alberta’s energy resource development."
If built, the pipeline would carry oil from Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. A key part of the plan to expand exports of Canada’s growing petroleum production, Keystone has been heavily promoted by the Harper government and Alberta. The pipeline’s fate has become a major factor in Canada-U.S. relations and...
Kelly Bingel, a well-connected lobbyist with Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc. in Washington, D.C., met with members of the staff of 20 U.S. senators between March and May 2013 to “better articulate the benefit of Alberta’s energy resource development,” according to documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice unde...
Among the donations was a $3,761 contribution from Bingel to Sen. Kay Hagan, a North Carolina Democrat, on March 25, 10 days after Bingel and Hagan’s legislative assistant met for lunch to discuss the oilsands. Another contribution, amounting to $1,074, was filed by Bingel on the same day to Democratic Sen. Mark Udall ...
According to the documents, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti argued that Alberta had made significant strides in cutting its carbon emissions, and that reducing U.S. dependence on Saudi and Venezuelan oil would further U.S. foreign policy.
The donations were the largest the two senators received from Bingel since they assumed office.
In another instance, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, then chair of the Senate finance committee, collected $2,149 in donations from Bingel on March 25. Nine days later, on April 4, Baucus’ legislative assistant met with Bingel. The previous donation Baucus received from Bingel dates back to January 2007.
Two other senators received contributions within a month of meeting a lobbyist from the firm.
Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti received $74,000 from Alberta over the duration of the contract, which ran from March through June 2013, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act records. In that period, the firm made a total of $17,000 in contributions to senators it reported in U.S. government documents that it had met ...
There is no evidence that money donated by Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti came directly from the government of Alberta. The lobbyists were working on behalf of other clients throughout the same period. Bingel declined to comment on the nature of her meetings, citing the company’s policy on client privacy.
The government relations firm’s contributions were only part of the millions of dollars the oil and gas industry spends to make its views known in Congress. Since it was first proposed in 2005, the much-disputed Keystone pipeline has generated an extensive lobbying campaign in Washington.
A key moment came in the vote on HR3, a bill in the House of Representatives that would have allowed Congress to approve the northern sections of Keystone without authorization from the White House. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, members of the House who voted to approve the legislation e...
While not illegal, such contributions, consumer advocates say, underscore the cosy relationship between lobbyists and members of Congress on Capitol Hill.
Holman said he is working with the American Bar Association on a piece of legislation that would, if passed, ban lobbyists from contributing to electoral funds. The practice is unethical, he said.
The growth of lobbying in Washington has given rise to concerns that interest groups have too much influence, with critics saying the law governing lobbying for domestic interests — the Lobbying Disclosure Act — needs to be strengthened. Those lobbying for foreign companies or governments are required to provide inform...
Neither of the laws governs the timing of political contributions.
Such a high standard of proof is difficult to meet, Gross said.
He recalled only one incident where the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog agency, investigated the timing of a campaign donation. But the case, which had nothing to do with Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, was later dismissed after it was referred to the House Committee on Ethics, a panel composed of an...
“After all was said and done, a lot more was said than done,” he said.
The hiring of Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti was part of a wider effort by Alberta to sway Congress on the oilsands. Between 2010 and 2013, the province spent $1.1 million to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to data from the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan U.S. organization advocating for a more op...
Alberta has an office in Washington, but its limited staff occasionally needs help in navigating the U.S. capital, said Cal Dallas, Alberta’s international and intergovernmental affairs relations minister.
“Obviously, we think it’s important or we wouldn’t do it. It involves expenditure of taxpayer funds. Really, what it reflects is a pretty unique political atmosphere in Washington and from time to time, depending on the circumstances — and obviously the Keystone project is critically important to Alberta’s future — we ...
“Whether that’s in the context of media strategies or media access or whether it’s event organization or opportunities or it’s specifically support developing briefings and assisting with accessing meeting opportunities, we do use outside firms,” Dallas told the Star.
The minister said he was not aware that lobbyists hired by his government were providing campaign funds to members of Congress. But the practice, he said, is not surprising, given the way Washington operates.
“I don’t monitor that, and quite frankly, I expect pretty much everybody engaged in that business there is engaged in those types of activities, but it’s not something we monitor,” he said.
Alberta currently has no contracts with lobbyists in the U.S. capital, Dallas said.
On day premier took fire from quitting caucus member and was gone from view, she talked with predecessor.
Clark and Campbell: premier's spokesperson mum on subject of call.
On the morning of March 26 this year, B.C. Premier Christy Clark spent half an hour on the phone speaking to Gordon Campbell for reasons mysterious.
While it might seem nothing out of the ordinary for a premier to touch base with her predecessor as Liberal Party leader and premier, this particular conversation invites deeper interest for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, Clark had gone to great effort to publicly distance herself from the unpopular Campbell, now Canada's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
For another, March 26 was the day John van Dongen assailed the leadership of both Clark and Campbell in his startling speech in the Legislature declaring his resignation from the BC Liberals and his deep misgivings about the tax-payer funded $6 million dollars to cover legal expenses of David Basi and Robert Virk after...
Clark's agenda, acquired by The Tyee, shows this entry on March 26: "9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Phone call with High Commissioner Gordon Campbell -- HE will call PVO [Premier's Vancouver Office]."
What was the reason for the call? What was discussed? Who initiated the appointment?
The terse, official answer emailed to The Tyee by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is that the topic of conversation was the upcoming Olympics in London. But Clark's own press handler refused to confirm that's what was discussed.
March 26 was the last Monday of the most tumultuous month in Clark's short premiership.
Four days earlier, she announced the by-elections for Port Moody and Chilliwack.
Two days earlier, John Yap was sworn-in as Minister of State for Multiculturalism in a hastily arranged, $3,600 Saturday afternoon ceremony at the Chinese Cultural Centre that was closed to the media. Yap was filling the seat left vacant by Harry Bloy, Clark's only leadership supporter from caucus who quit cabinet on M...
Backbenchers Rob Howard and Moira Stilwell got Parliamentary Secretary posts on the same day as Yap.
Then, just five hours after Campbell and Clark had their phone conversation, John van Dongen rose in the Legislature to announce his resignation from the Liberal caucus to sit as a Conservative independent. In doing so, he fired a verbal salvo at Clark.
"I had hoped that there would have been renewal in my party and in government, but in the last 12 months I feel that has not happened," van Dongen said. "Indeed, every week constituents question government actions and issues that I am not able to defend. What I believe people expect from political leadership are core v...
Clark was not at her seat and her whereabouts were unclear until the next day when she appeared at a news conference in Victoria to accuse van Dongen of hastening a split in the centre-right coalition that would lead to an NDP government.
Clark now is mulling a name change for the BC Liberal party that has never recovered from then Premier Campbell's imposition of the Harmonized Sales Tax.
Clark famously refused to pose for a photograph with Campbell while at a June 4, 2011 fundraising party at constituent Jacqui Cohen's Point Grey mansion.
She phased out Campbell's "Best Place on Earth" slogan and replaced it with her Canada Starts Here.
She even rebuffed Finance Minister Kevin Falcon's bid for a British Columbia promotional presence in London during this summer's Olympics, because she wanted further distance from Campbell.
Campbell was a no-show to receive his Order of British Columbia last fall but returned for a Feb. 11 luncheon speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade. Clark and the inner-circle of her cabinet made other plans. They were in Olympia, Wash., for a joint cabinet meeting with Gov. Christie Gregoire.
Yet records reveal that six weeks later, amidst a particularly busy and high-stakes period in her political life, Clark found a half hour to check in with Campbell via phone.
A request for information or an interview to the High Commission's press officer, Christie Tucker, was forwarded to Foreign Affairs and International Trade spokesperson Ian Trites in Ottawa.
"High Commissioner Campbell telephoned Premier Clark to discuss the upcoming London Olympic and Paralympic Games, as he has done with other premiers across the country," Trites said in an emailed statement.
The same question was posed Sara MacIntyre, Clark's press secretary.
"I can confirm the call, but not the substance of the discussion," MacIntyre wrote in an email.
MacIntyre did not respond to a follow-up query seeking to know whether Clark is planning a trip to the Olympics and whether Clark sought advice on any current or past issue from Campbell.
It is a healthy democracy in which audiences pack candidate meetings to hear what the latest batch of aspiring city leaders have to say. But David Loughrey discovered this week those who turn up want more than just platitudes.
Political campaigning, that art of being the most popular person to the largest amount of people, moved this week from the bubble of social media to the more difficult world where actual people ask questions to your face.
The election period started last month, as election periods will, with the quiet thud of wooden stakes into the damp earth of Dunedin roadsides, those stakes topped by aspirational slogans like "getting the basics right", or "building a brighter future together" or "getting things done".
Those are all worthy ideas.
At the same time the world of social media began to gently hum with messages from those keen to be elected.
There were patsy interviews where candidates talked about their love of family, there were posts that contained the word "passionate", and "honesty and integrity’’ even made their way into the political debate.
One candidate entered a lengthy, and at times snarky debate on Facebook about climate change and other difficult matters.
But people, with their questions, their views, and their insistence on answers rather than generalities finally came to the fore on Wednesday.
Cr Andrew Whiley found himself in front of an audience of people keen on sustainability and the environment at a forum organised by Sustainable Dunedin, Forest and Bird and Wise Response.
He was forced to explain his advocacy of gas exploration off the coast of Otago, after earlier suggesting a sustainability manager and an energy manager at the council would be a good idea, as well as a roundtable of people who wanted to do something about biodiversity.
During questions on his views Cr Whiley told the meeting it was not possible to "turn the tap off on oil", and gas was a good transition fuel.
"We’ve got to start the process," he told them.
It wasn’t a bad argument, but it did not go down that well.
"We don’t want it," he was told loudly by audience members.
pointed questions of candidates, though perhaps the 55 minutes of prepared speeches from the 11 candidates before question time had made them keen for a politician to actually say something about what they might do once they were in power.
We would urge people to come prepared with piercing questions that get to the very heart of city matters at the next mayoral and council forums.That is your challenge.
There are more meetings next week.
The Mosgiel Rotary Club hosts a forum for council candidates at the Coronation Hall on Thursday at 7pm, and the annual Opoho Presbyterian Church forum is on Sunday, September 18 and Monday, September 19.

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