Support Cyrus's Fight for Recovery

Cyrus is in the P-ICU at UW Health American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, WI. We are not from WI. We are from OH. We traveled to Madison for a combination work/vacation trip. We had come up for Marly to finish her design work with our good friend Brian at Children’s Theater of Madison, and then we were going to extend our stay and spend a couple of days with our other good friends and their children, enjoying a hotel with a pool to round out our older daughter’s spring break week.

Cyrus had been dealing with a cough but was seen on Friday at his primary care pediatrician’s office and was given some medication that should help him get over the cough. We traveled to Madison on Sunday, and he was just not feeling good. Monday turned into a stay at the hotel because that’s about all he could manage kind of day, and Tuesday we decided to bring him in to urgent care. The urgent care trip turned pretty quickly into an ambulance ride to the ER and then being admitted to the PICU and being intubated and going on life support in quick succession. He went from being at the hotel with us to being placed on life support in the PICU in the matter of about 12 hours.

His body had been attacked by a virulent strain of Strep, Group A, that caused him to get super sick and then infected his blood, which turned into sepsis, and that sepsis created total septic shock which caused many of his organs to fail.

He was intubated and put on a ventilator to try and get more oxygen into his pneumonia-ridden lungs. Then put on an ECMO machine that was doing the work of his heart and lungs to level out his blood pressure and heart rate. And then a CRRT dialysis machine and a pheresis machine were added to assist with cleaning, filtering, and removing all the toxins and waste that his little body was inundated with. Chest tubes were added on both sides to drain the fluid around his lungs to let them try to re-inflate. He was on many different medications and infusions trying to help get his numbers under control, and once a stasis level was achieved, then slowly but surely, the goal is to give him back control of his body as he proves capable of handling it, and weaning him back off the life support machines.

With the bombardment of all the fluids and medications he was given to help bring his systems back in line, he gained a lot of mass and weight because his system was in shock and the veins had turned “leaky.” So the IVs and infusions he was given didn’t stay in his veins but permeated the rest of his tissue. Part of the way his body is dealing with all the extra fluid is to extrude and force it out through his skin. He is covered in terrible, huge, blisters that are requiring intense care and daily cleaning, and because of the extreme extent that his body went through circulation issues, his extremities may suffer deceased tissue loss.

There are many things we don’t know and may have to wait months to learn, including whether amputation will be necessary or a kidney transplant, but at this time we are taking one day at a time and are super grateful that we get to talk in terms of future planning and long-term goals. He is slowly starting the weaning process off of some of the machinery that was used to keep him alive and we can’t wait for the possibility of seeing him wake up and look in our eyes.

Our week-long work/vacation trip has turned into a multi-week hospital stay, several states away from home, and we aren’t sure when we may be able to leave. We are trying to figure out schooling needs for our first grader and work needs for our jobs. We have been super fortunate to have wonderful friends and family who have traveled from other states to come help lend support and have been instrumental with childcare for Merritt while we are so focused on Cyrus and his progress in the hospital.

We thank you all, near and far, for the love and support you have been sending our way! We were encouraged to create this site as way for more of you to lend your aid. Thank you, thank you, thank you one and all for support in thought, prayer, and financially. We appreciate it very much.

This link was created to direct your willingness and urge to help towards assisting us with the extensive medical expenses, extended stay circumstances while Cyrus is in the hospital, and an air ambulance ride back to OH once he’s more stable. Thank you so much for your help!!!