Caden Parker was born on May 15th, 2002 in Medina, Ohio. As soon as his umbilical cord was cut, he went into respiratory distress. Doctors told me they thought he had fluid on his lungs due to me not needing to push very hard to have him. He stayed in an incubator for a night, his oxygen levels lowering by the hour. It was then decided he would be transferred to Akron Children's Hospital, he needed to be ventilated and neonatologists needed to find the source for his struggling breathing. The cardiologist and neonatologist in Akron took Dan and I into a room, and told us the news. Caden had complete tracheal rings and pulmonary artery sling. The prognosis was not promising and we were advised to discuss it with our family. The neonatologist told Dan and I that there was a surgery, but it was incredibly dangerous and Caden may only live 3 months after surgery. He had tears in his eyes when he said, "When is enough, enough? Maybe you should think about taking Caden off of life support" I had a complete emotional break down in a waiting room (which I will always regret since there were other grieving families in the room and it was not polite of me) and told my mom we needed to go buy a toy for Caden to buried with. Dan assured me he was going to be ok, even if we had to fly him to another hospital. Dan then ventured back to the Ronald McDonald House and looked online. He did a search and found Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. Two doctors there specialized in complete tracheal rings. We took the info back to the Akron docs. They were very reluctant to send Caden to Chicago. They didn't know if he would survive the flight. Dan and I even had to go to the Head of Cardiology's office and debate with him why we should be allowed to take our son to Chicago. He let us go.
Dan and Caden flew via a life flight airplane to Chicago. I came via car. Caden was set to have his surgery within 2 days. At the time, only 2 other children at Children's Memorial had had the specific surgery Caden would need. One child lived, one child died.
Caden ended up having the surgery called a slide tracheoplasty graphic of slide tracheoplasty, he was hospitalized over the next 10 months in Chicago healing from that and dealing with a host of other issues. One being portal vein thrombosis, which required a Rex Shunt procedure. Caden at the time, was the youngest and smallest child in the world that on which this surgery was attempted and successfully completed. Also he had choledochal cysts and severe gastro-intestinal bleeding, which needed a roux en y (gastric bypass), both the Rex Shunt Dr. Superina and the Rex Shunt and Roux en Y took place when Caden was 5 months old. He also suffered from steroid induced osteopenia (he broke over 15 bones in his body while just lying in bed) and profound hearing loss. We were transferred to The Cleveland Clinic for 3 months preparing to go home. The last hospital stop was in Nationwide Children's Hospital for a week just to get all of our ducks in a row. Count that up, it's 14 months in 5 different hospitals. Whew!! Now, we call Cincinnati Children's our home base. Where Caden received one of his 2 cochlear implants (the other placed by The Cleveland Clinic) Dr. Michael Rutter is amazing not only with Caden, but with Logan also. For now, Caden is a stable, crazy 8 year old.
