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Baby Mason Witte

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This gofundme was created on behalf of and with the permission of the Witte family. It cost over $6000 per day for baby Mason to be at the hospital, it is unknown at this time how much insurance will cover. As of 11/30/18 the family has been at the hospital for 11 days. This does not include any expenses for final arrangements and for all the unexpected expenses the family has incurred during this difficult time. No family should ever have to endure what this family is dealing with right now. Anything that we can do to lift that burden would be greatly appreciated. All funds will go directly directly to the Witte Family.


Below are the updates as provided by Andrew & Jessy Witte 

11/29/18 - Update on MasonThis last week has been an emotional rollercoaster. Signs of hope and recovery with slides backwards to where we currently stand as of today. Masons as of this morning is still in critical stable condition. He has been on a few medications to regulate his blood pressure and heart rate while we got passed the brain swelling part of all this. The family and had a roundtable with all the experts and doctors on Monday to walk through his progress from incident to day seven. During this meeting, there were a lot of notable ups and downs. His Brain function, in the beginning, was showing signs of possible recovery but we knew that we weren’t through peak brain swelling. During this meeting, we talked over how his body and organs were functioning but there was trauma to the brain.The areas that received trauma were small in the brain but they were in the very important areas of the brain. The area such as the thalamus. The thalamus is the pathway that allows communication from brain-body. It also is the area that produces sensory, motor signal relay and the regulation of consciousness and sleep. This area in Mason's brain was most severely traumatized due to lack of blood flow and oxygen post incident. During this period of seven days, we were hoping to see some signs of recovery because you never really know with brains that are this young and haven’t fully developed. Unfortunately, during this period, we were not able to get significant signs of recovery. In hopes that maybe we missed something and not giving up on Mason, we questioned the medications he was being given. After review one of the medications that he was on did have the possibility of masking brain function. In an effort to continue to bring Mason back to us, we did some risk management and decided with the collaboration with the doctors that we wanted to take him off the meds for a few days and see if the side effects from the medications were masking brain function.Through lots of ups and downs, I fast forward to Wednesday. We round tabled with the experts and doctors once again to go over Mason's baselines and functionality without medications. Unfortunately, even without the medications he still lacked thereof response of all functionalities that associates with this portion of his brain. During these few days of waiting, the doctors were able through extensive examination and many, many, hours of compiling data come to a conclusion of what happened. Mason had a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy incident in conjunction with long QT syndrome. Mason had basically what my brother Brandon passed away from. Just like my brothers’ heart with no signs or symptoms, Mason's heart went into an irregular arrhythmia and ultimately stopped beating.Today the family and I are going to fill our day with Mason and bask in every last moment we can with him. Followed by the most difficult decision we’ve ever had to make. Tomorrow we will be taking Mason off life support . We are all so humbled and taken back by the love and support that literally has come from all over this planet. You all have been so amazing to us during this trying time. We have all felt the love and seen the support. Once we move past this next phase, I will post more details of what’s next.We love all of you and cannot express enough how much you all mean to us. As our hearts literally break your words of love and knowledge have kept our family with perspective. We love you village.

https://www.facebook.com/1421147685/posts/10218761830623137/__________________________________________________________

11/24/18 -- Update on MasonThe last 24 hours Mason has continued to remain stable. There are no new signs of responding as of yet but that’s mainly due to the body rewarming process that he is currently going through. They have reached the optimal body temp for him and are going to continue to keep him there until he can do it on his own.Due to the body rewarming we are seeing a few fluctuations that are attributed to what’s called neuro storms which is making his heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing erratic. However, these are all things that we expected though and are common amongst these kinds of traumas. Basically, his brain is trying to figure out how to make the body function again and with time we are hopeful that he will be able to regulate all of these things I take for granted each day.Yesterday Mason was given red blood cells because his counts were low. They also gave him a CT scan and thought he possibly had bleeding in his brain or possibly somewhere in his body which again is not uncommon for hypoxemic respiratory failure in which Mason had. The CT scan of his brain came back negative for any bleeds and they have been monitoring his fluid outputs for any other signs of symptoms of a bleed elsewhere. So far everything has come back negative with no bleeding thankfully.At this point we are in a holding pattern, it is a waiting game. We wait and react to any signs or symptoms that may arise during this body rewarming phase. Day 3-5 is of the body rewarming is when we will see the peak swelling of his brain. We are on day two. So, we are going to stay strong, stay together and not accept anything less than stable. This boy has been through a lot and he’s still here and that alone is amazing!Yesterday Jessy and I decided that we needed a break from the hospital and to see our girls. They are being so brave. We went with our family to the festival of trees in Davenport and that was pretty damn amazing. We sang, danced, and admired the Christmas decorations. We got a slice of normal and we were so grateful for that moment of clarity.I am huge on mental health. Things like this will shake even the strongest of individuals and yesterday as a family we all went back to the place where it happened and as a family talked through the traumatic event. It was extremely difficult but we got through it.After we got back to the hospital there was a moment of pure bliss that happen that is certainly noteworthy. As we walked into Masons room, we got the situation update from our nurse. Mason is still stable and we had a plan forward for the evening. During this convo Jessy was holding Willem and we were getting ready to put him to sleep. You could see on Jessy’s face that she wanted to ask if she could put them together. These two boys since the beginning of their existence they have always been together and it always hurts to not see them together. It’s like their beings together makes them stronger. In that moment I could see the nurse picking up what Jessy was putting down and she said yes! Put them together! Jessy put Willem next to Mason and as soon as they were together Willem smiled! Then attached to Masons arm and snuggled it to his face and begun trying to suck on it lol. The nurses, my wife, and I Lost it. That level of togetherness made me have to take a walk. Simply beautiful.For those of you that don’t know the whole story I’ll give you a basic run down.About 5-6 weeks ago I was offered a position at the rock island arsenal. During this time my Grandmother whom I was the medical power of attorney for was nearing the end of her life. So, we packed up and move back to the Quad Cities as fast as we possibly could so that we could be here to assist with my grandmother. Three days after completing the move my grandmother passed. We went so hard and so fast to be here for my grandmother that I did not completely out process from the Air Force and had to go back to Buckley AFB to complete that. As I was transitioning from my last week with the Air Force, Jessy and I were going through our daily morning routine with the babies and the girls. Jessy was getting the girls together and ready for school. When she went to go get Mason and Willem to put them in their car seats, she came upon Mason. He was completely blue and unresponsive. We have looked at every angle of this tragedy and still cannot understand what happened. He did not choke. He wasn’t smothered. He just simply stopped breathing. The doctors cannot give us a diagnosis from the signs and symptoms he had. We are just so thankful that he was able to be revived and right now, at this moment he is still with us.So, for the time being, we will continue to wait for the peak swelling to pass and then we can begin healing and the recovery process. I will continue to read to him all of the comments that yall are leaving because for me I think it's important for him to hear all the love and support. Thank you, everyone, for everything that all of you have done for our family. I just can’t say it enough. We appreciate you all.

https://www.facebook.com/1421147685/posts/10218720771596687/_________________________________________________________

11/21/18  - Update on Mason

MRI came back with two areas of the Masons brain that shows trauma. The first  area of trauma is in the right hemisphere of the brain. This controls movement on the left side of his body. As to the extent of the trauma we are unsure at this point. Only time will tell but he is responding to pain on his left upper side. The second part of his brain that’s showing trauma is the thalamus which controls several different items. Mostly information flow from brain to the rest of the body and again the extent of the trauma is unknown and will only be known with time. Positive signs are that he is responding a little more and more to light and pain stimulation the more and more we move through the day. Positive notes. The rest of his brain is in great shape and isn’t really a concern at this point but again only time with tell. His body functions are still stable and all his organs look great. He’s still on a ventilator but is initiating his own breaths. His pupils are dilating more and more with each time we check. Mason is no longer on any antibiotics or meds that are going to keep him in a coma like state. We have begun a 24 hour warm up of his body in hopes to figure out more of the extent of the trauma to his brain. All of the talk today with neurology was extremely hopeful. His age and current state of development he is currently in gives him room to “recalibrate” and find new ways to figure out the normal ways of development. It’s all still very early with all this and we are taking this all day by day. (Hard pill to swallow)The Mason we knew from birth to incident will be a different Mason we currently have and that’s ok. We have have him, he’s still here with us and that’s all that matters. The neurologist said that Mason isn’t looking at hours, days, or even weeks. He has a life time ahead of him and that felt sooo amazing to hear. I just want to take another moment and publicly acknowledge and thank all Rock Islands first responders fire and police for their swift action and expertise. Without them I whole heartedly believe we would be in an even worse less than desirable situation. It’s because of them, we still have Mason here with us today. Each day as we continue to move forward with progress and solve each issue that arises, all of you that have reached out and are following and sending prayer and good vibes you are in our thoughts. All of the love and support from you all is extremely comforting. Keep it coming. As hard as it is to read to our unconscious little man, I have been reading every comment and every message we receive so that Mason feels all this love. This village is amazing and we will get through this. We appreciate all of you. 

https://www.facebook.com/1421147685/posts/10218697216967836/ __________________________________________________️ ️

11/20/18  - Family and friends. I’ve learned through time that the moments of hardship define the essence of togetherness. These last two days have been full of the heaviest of hard for our family. On Monday morning while going through our morning routine I received a call from Jessy. She had found our son Mason blue, not breathing, and unresponsive. As I’m sure you can all imagine the absolutely full panic at that very moment. I’ve never been more proud of our family. Jessy and my little ladies sprung into action. Calling 911. CPR. Isabella flagging down anyone and everyone to help. Genevieve was calm, steadfast, and collected. Both helping Jessy in so many ways. Rock Island Fire dept and police showed up on scene in amazing time. They took over CPR. At this point they determined that Mason was in cardiac arrest. They quickly picked him up and took him by ambulance to Trinity Rock Island. While in transit they were able to revive Mason. While at Trinity they worked diligently and were able to stabilize him and coordinate a life flight to university of Iowa children’s hospital. At this point with the greatest of support I was able to catch a flight home. This amazing children’s hospital worked on Mason all day to stabilize him and try to figure out what happen. We are still uncertain as to the cause of all this but what we do know is from every angle of life we have been shown so much kindness and outstanding professionalism. For many of you that have been a part of bringing this full circle, there are no words that I can even begin to type that will correctly express my gratitude for helping save our son, getting me home, supporting our family in time of need, coordination, and simply all the love. All that we can say or do is say thank you from every part of our hearts, thank you. Things we do know right now. Mason is still unconscious. He’s on a ventilator that’s helping him breath but he is initiating his own breaths. Yesterday he was not reactive to touch or even pupil dilation. Today he is slowly making progress with both. His pupils are dilating more and more every time they check and as of an hour ago he has begun reacting to pain stimulus in both of his arms. His organs are all functioning perfectly. He just had an MRI but we do not know the results as of yet. The MRI will help us better understand the trauma that may have been caused to his brain. It’s a waiting game right now. Hour by hour. We are all very optimistic and hopeful with all this slow progress he has been making throughout the day. We will keep you all posted on what’s next and any updates we get. Send all your love, prayers, good vibes, whatever you can to our little man.

https://www.facebook.com/1421147685/posts/10218689569816662/
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    • 5 yrs
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Andrew Witte
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Rock Island, IL

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