Remember the scene in Twilight where Bella realized that Jacob imprinted on her daughter? That pretty much describes my love for my best friend Jaime’s son, Patrick. We call him PJ or Peej, if you will. He is six years old and autistic and he is a GENIUS. This week, Pj went into respiratory distress when his Mom, a Registered Nurse by trade, took him outside to get cool air to relax an inflamed airway that was triggered by a virus causing croup. Pj went unresponsive and began to turn blue as Jaime frantically called for help and 911. Pj was taken to Lancaster General Hospital, where they were unsuccessful in starting an airway, and ended up with a tracheostomy. After chest X-rays revealed opaque white/lung opacities (his lungs were full of blood) they realized that his lungs could not function this way, the trach was useless, and he was life-lined via helicopter to Hershey Hospital where he was put on ECMO. ECMO is a very complicated and expensive machine that takes the blood from the body, scrubs the carbon dioxide from it, oxygenates it and pumps it back into the body. It literally does the job of the lungs and the heart, because Pj is so sick, his lungs cannot. This is one of the most expensive forms of life support. This entire story unfolded without warning, as Pj was playing, running and jumping, as happy as could be the day before.

Pj has a long road ahead of him. His lungs need to heal to begin the transition off ECMO. He may even require different therapies to bring him back to the life a six year old boy deserves, the life he has worked so hard for, as a previously non-verbal autistic child who has already come so far. We are asking for some help to ease the financial burden that being off work and future medical bills bring. Jaime and Patrick Sr (Pj’s Dad) both work full time, have very limited paid time off from their jobs and also have two other children, Willow and Hazel. Jaime is currently employed as a RN but any Nurse Mom knows that it is nearly impossible to care for others when your precious child needs you more than anyone on this earth. Please give what you can, and feel free to share this. Above all, we ask for prayers for Pj on his journey back to health and for comfort for his whole family. ❤️

UPDATE 3/14

A update on PJ from Jaime:

PJ had his scoping procedure today, with hopes the physicians could now see his airway after days of strong IV steroids. They were able to see his vocal cords, and they appear to be intact. We will not know what or if any trauma was sustained during traumatic intubation attempts. PJ’s epiglottis (a flap of cartilage located at the back of the tongue, above the windpipe) is so severely swollen still that they can’t see much else. During the procedure he suffered a bleed, which took over an hour to stop. They are watching his labs and he may require a third blood transfusion. He is required to be on blood thinners because of the ECMO circuit, but has suffered a lung bleed yesterday as well. It is a difficult balance. His chest x-rays are showing some improvement, and the team is trialing some changes to the ventilator and ECMO settings to see what his body tolerates. The hope is to wean PJ off of ECMO in the next week so he can go to the OR and have a more permanent airway placed, a tracheostomy*. He continues to be highly sedated, but is able to follow commands like giving a thumbs up or wiggling his toes when the sedation begins to wear off. I fully believe that all the prayers are working- from a boy whose heart stopped beating in the ER to one who always opens his eyes to his Daddy’s voice. Please keep praying. We love you all.

*Pj was emergency trach’ed in the ER but they have to operate to make this more functional and stable for future use. They do not believe he will need it permanently.

Update 3/16

He is trying to take very big breaths around the ventilator, which is good, but it’s cutting off the EMO circuit. It’s OK because it only happens when he takes a deep breath. We see some slight improvement in today’s chest x-ray versus yesterday’s and will have another repeat chest x-ray in the afternoon around 4 PM. They’re still concerned that the airway they have in is to be protected at all costs because they cannot bring him down to the OR to put in a more permanent airway until he is off of ECMO, given his multiple hemorrhagic episodes. His lungs are showing that he is still not ready to come off the ECMO. They continue to go down on the sedation, but then he wakes up violently and scared, so we immediately have to try to calm him so that he does not dislodge his airway or harm the ECMO tubing in anyway. The goal remains weening him off ECMO so he can be off high levels of blood thinners, and place a more functional Trach. The doctors said this is going to be a long process.