"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11
"Pray for Aidan" Wristbands We have wristbands for sale for $5 each. They are now available for purchase through our new storefront.
We have 5 colors: red, orange, green, royal blue and navy blue in Small (fits up to 7" wrist), Medium (7.5" wrist), and Large (8" wrist). Most adults will wear a Medium.
Donations
If you wish to donate to help pay for Aidan's therapies, click on the Chipin box below:
If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation, please send it to the Hugs Foundation for Near Drowning Children and place "www.prayforaidan.com" in the Memo line. Checks can be mailed to:
The Hugs Foundation
843 Ashford St.
Simi Valley, CA 93065
Thanks!
Aidan's story
On February 16, 2008 – just 5 days away from his 2nd birthday – Aidan nearly drowned in a pond near his Papaw's house. We were setting up for his birthday party and had only been at the house for about 30 minutes when Aidan wandered away from family members.
Somehow Aidan ended up down the hill at the fishing pond. We aren't sure exactly how long Aidan was in the water. The terrain made it difficult to see where Aidan was unless you actually were in certain areas of the yard or house. Russell saw Aidan in the pond when we started looking around once we realized that he was missing. He immediately ran down and jumped in the pond to get Aidan out. His Nana, a nurse, began CPR immediately while 911 was called.
It only took 3 minutes for the first responders to arrive and they took over for my mom. The paramedics worked on Aidan at the scene, intubated him and continued to try and get a pulse. They did not get a pulse on Aidan until about 40-45 minutes later after they arrived at the ER. Once at the hospital the initial blood work showed that Aidan's blood was extremely acidic and was had severe hypothermia. We were told to prepare for the worst, because the doctor on duty did not expect Aidan to survive.
We made it through the first hours, getting him warmed up slowly, and then came the fever from developing pneumonia. Aidan was kept in a medically induced coma for several days. He had several EEGs that showed very slow brain activity and some seizures. CT scans that showed a little swelling and an MRI initially showed very little damage.
After several more EEGs and MRIs, Aidan is no longer having seizures and he has more activity, but his brain has shrunk somewhat and the areas that looked hypoxic on the second MRI, infarcted, basically causing a stroke in Aidan's midbrain (basal ganglia) area. This is what is causing him to have what are called "sympathetic neuro-storms".
Aidan spent nearly 6 weeks at Jeff Gordon Children's Hospital at CMC-Northeast in the PICU. He was transferred to Levine Children's Hospital where he received physical, occupational and speech therapy for 3 weeks. Aidan was released from the hospital on April 17, 2008; 2 months and a day after his accident. He is continuing to receive nursing care and other therapies at home.
Aidan is a special little boy who has a beautiful heart and spirit and he could light up a room with his smile and his eyes. He has touched so many hearts and lives already and we hope that you all are inspired by his story and will follow us on our journey through Aidan's recovery. God Bless!
Hi everyone! I just wanted to post something since I haven't in several weeks. We are all doing okay, I guess. Aidan has had some congestion because he has been without one of his medications that really help keep his lungs clear along with his other stuff. We're having to wait for authorization and it's taking forever. Other than that, Aidan is doing well. We've been going to out-patient physical therapy and he seems to be doing well with it. I've seen him trying to hold his head up a little for very, very brief periods of time. We're hoping to start doing E-stim therapy with him with a TENS unit.
The rest of us are doing okay. Evan is his typical self, into everything! He's starting to say more and more words which is great. He's just very independent.
I felt the baby kick and move for the first time yesterday. I felt the boys move much sooner, so it was a relief to finally feel her move. We're still debating names. I like one and Russ likes another. We'll just have to see when she arrives.
We're having pictures made today for Christmas, so I'll post some of those here once I get the disk.
I hope everyone is doing well. Our thoughts and prayers are with the O'Neil family who just lost their mother to cancer earlier this week. We are so sorry for your loss.
My ultrasound appointment was Friday and providing that no little parts were hiding, it's a girl.
Aidan is doing well. He's almost over the pneumonia. He's done with the antibiotics, but it just takes some time to get him back to his usual self. He is still really tired, but hopefully he will start feeling better soon.
There is no school today or tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be happy to go back to school on Wednesday. He really loves it there.
Anyway, I just wanted to post the news for those of you who aren't on Facebook and hadn't heard yet!
Things had been going well with Aidan. Last Sunday when the nurse was feeding Aidan some applesauce he sneezed a few times after he had swallowed a bite, but apparently he still had a little in his mouth, and he aspirated. Within a few hours his lungs were really congested and he was acting like he wasn't feeling well. Later that night he spiked a fever of almost 102.
I called the doctor's office and got him in the next morning and they did an x-ray, but no definite areas of pneumonia showed up. Since he sounded like he had pneumonia, the nurse practitioner prescribed him an antibiotic and had me bring Aidan back the following morning when I had my prenatal appointment with our regular doctor. Dr. P put him on another antibiotic and told me to bring him back Friday. There were a few nights we had to put him on extra oxygen because his oxygen levels were lower than what we like them to be and he was working so hard to breathe.
On Friday, they did a repeat x-ray, which actually looked worse (because he didn't get a good deep breath), but he sounded better. So..... our adventures in dealing with aspiration pneumonia have not been fun, but we've managed to stay out of the hospital. He still sounds pretty junky, but the infection is breaking up. We're giving him extra breathing and vest treatments to help him cough the stuff up.
Anyway, aside from all of that fun stuff, we're doing as well as we can considering. Things are tight as always and we're still looking for a house to rent which is rather difficult to find something that is reasonable and that is big enough for all of us and Aidan's supplies. They boy needs his own small house just to fit in comfortably! :)
At my prenatal appointment the dr. said that everything is good. The baby's heart rate was around 143. I'm 17weeks and 2 days along today. I meet with the OB tomorrow afternoon since I've been seeing my family dr. so far, and Friday I'm scheduled to have another ultrasound so hopefully the baby will cooperate and we'll get to see if we're having another little boy or a little girl. I'm hoping for a GIRL! It's just me and Gracie (our dog) and we are really outnumbered here... lol.
So, I hope that everyone is doing well. We appreciate all of the prayers and support as always. I don't think I'll ever be able to thank you all enough for caring so much about Aidan and our family. Many Blessings to you all!
So, it has been a while since I've actually posted on here and I apologize. When things are going well with Aidan time just passes quickly, and thank goodness things have been going well! Aidan is doing great. He's doing great at school now that we've rescheduled one med that was making him sleepy during the day. We had tried to wean him off of his daily dose of Clonidine which helps with the storming symptoms, like the posturing and tight muscles and stuff, but it became very apparent that weaning him off was not going to work. Although Aidan was alert and smiling and laughing at school he was doing a lot of posturing and by the time I was picking him up from school it was so bad that he would start crying because he was in pain.
We've put him back on the medicine and have changed the times he gets it so that he's awake and alert at school, and they've been telling me that he's smiling and laughing a lot. There is a girl from one of the local high schools who comes in to talk to Aidan and he always smiles at her. In fact, Aidan is just a big flirt in general. He always has been.
I've started realizing that even though Aidan might not be able to do the same things he used to be able to do, and he might not be able to do the same things as most kids his age, he's still Aidan. He still loves his bananas, even if they are in pureed form, and he loves applesauce and he still likes the Wonder Pets and will turn his head toward the TV when they come on.
We started outpatient physical therapy this week, and I am hopeful that Aidan will be able to make some progress. The therapist had him in all kinds of positions and he tolerated the movement and the position changes like a champ. Earlier on, he wouldn't have handled them well. I think one of our main goals is to work on Aidan's head control or just getting him to engage those muscles to lift his head some. Right now, he has no head control at all... as far as lifting his head up and holding it upright. Just imagine a rag-doll. He can move his head from side to side, but those are using an entirely different set of muscles.
Anyway, that's what is going on here. We're all doing pretty well. We're hoping to have some big fundraisers early next year, but we'll post more about that when the details are ironed out. Evan is doing well, and baby #3 is growing well. I have an appointment next week and will be 16 weeks at that point so we're hoping to find out if the boys will have a little brother or sister soon. (I'm hoping for a girl, but we'll be happy with either, of course.... but I'm outnumbered here!)
On a final note, I wanted to add a video that one of the mom's on our parent's of near-drowns group made for the HUGS Foundation. There are 2 pictures of Aidan in it (at 0:11 and 1:54), but it is wonderfully put together and shows children of all ages and progress levels of dealing with near-drowning. Thanks for putting the video together, Julie!
Aidan's first two appointments were back-to-back as he was seen by the pulmonologist and Dr. C. When Aidan was weighed, his weight appeared to be the same as last time. We had reduced his feedings in hopes that it would reduce some of his weight. We think he may have had another growth spurt since his weight had maintained, but a lot of his clothes had started to fit him better.
The pulmonologist was happy with his progress and asked about his congestion and allergy issues. We never got the allergy testing done, as the last time they drew blood, Aidan was doing his impression of a turnip ... or was it a stone? ... Anyway ... we were asked to let them know the next time he will be in for blood tests and they will try to get the allergy testing done at that time.
Dr. C was also happy with how Aidan has been doing. We had reduced one of Aidan's medications last week by half and he appeared to handle it alright, so Dr. C asked us to completely eliminate that medication. If things went well, we would be allowed to start reducing his Valium. Unfortunately, he started posturing more so we put the evening dose back in. We'll see how things go over the next week or two, then get back with Dr. C to find out what we should do next. Dr. C also setup a referral for us to get Aidan into an outpatient rehab center for physical therapy.
Later that afternoon was Aidan's swallow study. This went really well and we have started giving him small amounts of food by mouth during his last 3 feedings of the day. We'll build up his tolerances and hope to be feeding him more and more by mouth as time goes along.
Aidan wasn't the only one with appointments this week. Erin also had one with our primary care doctor. After going through a battery of questions that could be only be equated to those asked during a federal background check, the doc tried to find the baby's heartbeat. Needless to say, it wasn't being cooperative.
On Friday, we went for an ultrasound. For those of you who are just dying to know, we're having ...
a baby!
[Sorry ... couldn't resist ;)]
We're only a little over 12 weeks along, so we have a while to wait until we are able to see if we are having a boy or girl. I'll see if Erin can post the ultrasound pics later today.
