…and I cried.

I cried multiple times actually.  Stetson is an eleven week old infant going through a pretty hard time.

You see, he was diagnosed with Whooping Cough.  His parents don’t know where he got it from.  He could have gotten it anywhere.  When the EMT got to the house, he asked Stetson’s mom where she wanted him to go.  Without thinking she said, “Cooks.”

It was a good thing she did, for Cooks Children’s Hospital is just about the only place around that does an Extracorpreal Membrane Oxygenation…lovingly called an ECMO.  Go ahead and click on the link.  I’ll wait.  It goes to the wiki, and I’m not going to pretend to understand everything involved with it.

Well, the ECMO seems to have saved his life, but it also put it into peril.  For some reason, it caused blood clots to form, all over.  They had to take him off the ECMO, and put him onto a Dialysis machine.  The doctors gave him somewhere between %30 to %20 chance of survival.  The ECMO provided the oxygen he desperately needed, but it was killing him in other ways.  If his lungs wouldn’t work, then there would be very little they could do.

The good news is that he made it through the proceedure with flying colors!

Amen and Amen!

His lungs have gained back some function, which is why he was put on the ECMO to begin with.  He’s still not out of the woods, not by a long shot.  But, things are looking up to some degree.

Please keep Stetson in your prayers.  Keep his young mother and father in your prayers as well.

Oh, and if you happen to have some kids… do whatever it takes to hug them mulitple times within the next twenty four hours.  Trip them up, hog tie them, do whatever it takes to get hold of them…and hold them tight.  They are our gift from God, and deserve our best.

Tim