Hello Dear Friends,
My name is Danielle. I am Christian’s mommy. It is a bit funny to be guest starring on my own son’s blog. I wanted to give you an up close picture of the last 40 days. But more so, I want to show you God’s hands through this all.
On the evening of April 18th, Kyleigh (Christian’s biggest sissy) had a softball game. Christian would not eat his stage two baby food, which is unusual for him, and was extra fussy; however, he breastfeed fine and went to sleep between 7:30 and 8:00. At around 4:00 am I went to check on him…I stood outside his door for a moment and heard no crying but when I went through the door I heard a low moaning sound…it was Christian. I hurried to his crib and all he could do was look at me with his eyes, his body did not move. I picked him up and his body was limp; I screamed and rushed down the steps to Jack (Christian’s Daddy) yelling at him that there was something wrong. Jack held him as I took his temperature, it was very high. I gave him Tylenol and Motrin, deciding in my head that he was limp due to high fever. I took him back upstairs and was feeding him, he did ok. He fell back asleep and when we woke back up I switched sides for him to eat but he could not suck; he just looked at me and cried softly. It really hit me then that something was very wrong. I woke up the girls (Kyleigh and Jillian) and quickly ushered them into the car in their pjs; no food, drink, or bathroom.
We showed up on our pediatrician’s office doorstep. They saw us that second, the doctor told me to go Texas Children’s Hospital immediately. Sitting in the ER waiting room was scary and tense; both Jack and I were impatient. We were taken back to a room; the nurse did her quick assessment and realized the severity of the situation; so she got the doctor right away. That doctor decided to get the attending ER doctor. They ran blood, x-ray, and a CT-scan, all of which came back ok but Christian was getting worse by the minute. His heart and respiration rate were alarming, he had not eaten all day, and could barely move or cry. The attending doctor was completely clueless about what was happening to Christian and made it obvious she did not know what was wrong with him. By this time shift change occurred, (GOD’s hand) and there were two attending ER doctors looking into Christian’s case; this new doctor had a fresh perspective. He ordered an MRI. At this point friends/family had piled into this tiny ER room to support and pray over Christian (GOD’s hand). The girls were taken home by (GOD’s hand) the Criswell Family…words cannot express our gratitude.
The MRI was supposed to take an hour and a half, it ended up taking over 3 hours; the atmosphere was tense and nervous. They led us back into recovery and at the same time the nurse received orders to intubate him (put a tube down his throat so a machine could breathe for him) however he was breathing on his own(GOD’s hand), it was labored but he was managing. The attending doctor came into the recovery room and told us Christian had Transverse Myelitis. The lesion was extensive it ran from C3-4 to T5-6. The lesion was on, among other things, the part of the spinal cord that controlled breathing…Christian should not have been able to breathe on his own but he was (GOD’s hand). A team of three critical care doctors came in to explain that 1/3rd of people don’t make it, 1/3rd partially recover, and 1/3rd fully recover; they didn’t know which category Christian would fall in. I had been praying for the last nine hours to GOD begging HIM to let me keep C; but it was not till then that I realized how close we were to losing him. This day starts our new normal.
I promise to write as much as I can tomorrow to give you more of Christian’s journey and show you GOD’s hand.
~ Danielle
My name is Danielle. I am Christian’s mommy. It is a bit funny to be guest starring on my own son’s blog. I wanted to give you an up close picture of the last 40 days. But more so, I want to show you God’s hands through this all.
On the evening of April 18th, Kyleigh (Christian’s biggest sissy) had a softball game. Christian would not eat his stage two baby food, which is unusual for him, and was extra fussy; however, he breastfeed fine and went to sleep between 7:30 and 8:00. At around 4:00 am I went to check on him…I stood outside his door for a moment and heard no crying but when I went through the door I heard a low moaning sound…it was Christian. I hurried to his crib and all he could do was look at me with his eyes, his body did not move. I picked him up and his body was limp; I screamed and rushed down the steps to Jack (Christian’s Daddy) yelling at him that there was something wrong. Jack held him as I took his temperature, it was very high. I gave him Tylenol and Motrin, deciding in my head that he was limp due to high fever. I took him back upstairs and was feeding him, he did ok. He fell back asleep and when we woke back up I switched sides for him to eat but he could not suck; he just looked at me and cried softly. It really hit me then that something was very wrong. I woke up the girls (Kyleigh and Jillian) and quickly ushered them into the car in their pjs; no food, drink, or bathroom.
We showed up on our pediatrician’s office doorstep. They saw us that second, the doctor told me to go Texas Children’s Hospital immediately. Sitting in the ER waiting room was scary and tense; both Jack and I were impatient. We were taken back to a room; the nurse did her quick assessment and realized the severity of the situation; so she got the doctor right away. That doctor decided to get the attending ER doctor. They ran blood, x-ray, and a CT-scan, all of which came back ok but Christian was getting worse by the minute. His heart and respiration rate were alarming, he had not eaten all day, and could barely move or cry. The attending doctor was completely clueless about what was happening to Christian and made it obvious she did not know what was wrong with him. By this time shift change occurred, (GOD’s hand) and there were two attending ER doctors looking into Christian’s case; this new doctor had a fresh perspective. He ordered an MRI. At this point friends/family had piled into this tiny ER room to support and pray over Christian (GOD’s hand). The girls were taken home by (GOD’s hand) the Criswell Family…words cannot express our gratitude.
The MRI was supposed to take an hour and a half, it ended up taking over 3 hours; the atmosphere was tense and nervous. They led us back into recovery and at the same time the nurse received orders to intubate him (put a tube down his throat so a machine could breathe for him) however he was breathing on his own(GOD’s hand), it was labored but he was managing. The attending doctor came into the recovery room and told us Christian had Transverse Myelitis. The lesion was extensive it ran from C3-4 to T5-6. The lesion was on, among other things, the part of the spinal cord that controlled breathing…Christian should not have been able to breathe on his own but he was (GOD’s hand). A team of three critical care doctors came in to explain that 1/3rd of people don’t make it, 1/3rd partially recover, and 1/3rd fully recover; they didn’t know which category Christian would fall in. I had been praying for the last nine hours to GOD begging HIM to let me keep C; but it was not till then that I realized how close we were to losing him. This day starts our new normal.
I promise to write as much as I can tomorrow to give you more of Christian’s journey and show you GOD’s hand.
~ Danielle
