Ethan Update

As some of you know our little Ethan was airlifted to the Stollery Childrens Hospital in Edmonton for an emergency surgery on Tuesday evening. Randy and I rushed from Grande Prairie as quick as we could but got stuck in some bad weather and didn't make it until the next morning. We made it to the hospital and rushed into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to see our little guy. He was resting comfortably and we were able to sit and hold him for a bit. His nurse let us know that his surgery was scheduled to go forward between 3 and 12pm on Wednesday.

Little Ethan was born with a Tracheal Esophageal Fistula which meant that his esophagus did not connect to his stomach, instead a part of his attachd to his trachea and the other part simply formed a pouch and did not go anywhere. At the time we did not know which type of fistula he had, there are five different types and thankfully our little guy got the easiest one to repair. We met with his surgeon Dr. Lees and he explained the procedure to him and we signed consent for the surgery. They took him into surgery at 8:30pm. Mom and my brother Richard came up to sit with us while we waited to hear how it went and how successful it was. We got the call at 11:20pm that the surgeon wanted to met us and we rushed to the NICU where he met us to tell us that it all went perfectly. You have no idea how much relief we felt when he said that. I grabbed him and shook his hand...he saved our sons' life.

We got to see Ethan right away thankfully. He looks a little scary because he is intubated and has lots of wires everywhere but he is comfortable and healing. We thought originally that we wouldn't be able to hold him for a week but our nurse just told us that we might be able to by this weekend. He will stay intubated for a couple of days and sedated with Morphine to keep him from moving alot and tearing his sutures but its all good because he is healing. Next Thursday, May 8th he has a dye test to determine if the operation was a success. No leaks in the esophagus means we are on our way home quicker. Leaks mean another surgery. However we have read the surgical notes and spoke again today with the surgeon and all indicate a total success.

We will likely be in Edmonton for a couple of weeks and are staying right in the hospital in hostel rooms. Not the fanciest accomodations but all we really need right now is a place to sleep. I finally got some sleep last night once we knew that the surgery was a success. I think I was operating on less then 12 hours sleep in the last 4 days. Randy is doing okay as well. The hardest part right now is not being able to hold him.

I wanted to post a pic of him but I forgot my cord for my camera in the room so I will do it tomorrowish. The hospital has a nice family room with internet access and comfortable chairs for reading that we found today. It is a nice quiet reprieve from the hospital noises.

Anyhow thank you to everyone for your well wishes and prayers while we got through this. We are hoping that everything from now out will be taking us closer to going home so we can be a family.