June 2013

The kids all wanted a turn snuggling Thomas before he came up for surgery.

Thomas with his sweet Maddy Moo.

Abby's turn.

Our four sweet little snuggle bugs.

We have a very loved little guy.

Thomas in his helmet.  We got it to help shape his head so it isn't so flat.

On June 4th Thomas was admitted into the hospital so he could start IV fluids and antibiotics before his surgery on the 5th.

Here I am enjoying some final Thomas loves.

Thomas right before he was rolled away for surgery.

A kind member from the ward up here watched the kids during Thomas' surgery.  His surgery took much longer than expected, so we picked them up and they had fun in the family lounge doing this puzzle while we all waited.

Jared and the kids stayed up in Seattle with me and Thomas for a few days, but it was getting too difficult for us all to stay up here in our hotel so Jared took the kids back home to Richland.

On their last day here we all had a picnic and played at the park.   The kids thought it was great fun and Nathan told me "Mom, I dreamed about this park!"

Thomas took about 5 days to get extubated and sent to the floor.

Unfortunately he continued to have a distended belly and lots of pain, so 2 weeks after his first surgery they decided to go in again to see what was the problem.   When they operated they found out that he had a leak where they stitched his pull through.  It had caused a huge infection and they had to put in a ileostomy on his right side. Thankfully my sister Sarah had come up with her 4 kids to help watch Abby, Maddy, and Nathan so Jared could come up to Seattle and be with us after this second surgery.

On the morning of the 16th Jared and I were both awakened to a room full of doctors.  Thomas' numbers were not looking good and they were trying to figure out what to do when suddenly Thomas coded.   They called Code Green (which is like code blue, but for a patient that is already in the ICU).  The RTs called for a back board and they started CPR right away.  After about 30 minutes of CPR Dr. McMullan (who had done Thomas' previous heart surgery) operated to put Thomas on ECMO (basically life support).  The doctors came to speak with us and told us that Thomas had a 40-50% chance of survival. Needless to say, this completely changed our plans for coming home soon, and after a few days of Thomas being stable on ECMO I went back to Richland to send the kids to Utah to stay with my parents.

I gave the kids each a gift before they left.  Maddy got two little kitties from the American Girl store.

Nathan was excited to get big boy legos.

Abigail got her own little puppy dog (also an American Girl item).

They made a cute sign for us with their magnetic letters.

Grandpa Donaldson flew up to Seattle to spend a week with me and Thomas.  He made sure the doctors were taking good care of Thomas and that I was well fed with lots of delicious sea food.  It was great to have him here to break up the monotony of the hospital.

Thomas opening his eyes on ECMO.  We are happy that Thomas seems to have been able to regain his brain function after his arrest.

Thomas sleeping with his ventilator tube.

Even with all his tubes and lines, Thomas likes to keep his legs kicking.

Jared still has to work, but he comes up every weekend he doesn't have to take call.  Thomas loves seeing his daddy.  When he felt Jared's scratchy face, he got excited and it took some work to calm him back down so he didn't move around too much.  Jared wrote a blog post about his experience with Thomas going on ECMO: changedforgood3x21.blogspot.com


Our sweet little Thomas is still on ECMO but continues to improve.  We know that this is a result of all of the faith and prayers in his behalf.  It is also a result of some amazing modern medical technology and the skill of a lot of wonderful doctors and nurses.  We are praying and hoping for a miracle so we can keep our sweet Thomas with us.