Today’s featured cherub is Ethan Phillips. Ethan is the son of Dannielle Cole and she had this to share about her son’s journey with CDH:
“We had a textbook pregnancy. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up.
We arrived at our local Hospital on the 24th April 2015 to deliver our son via elective c-section. After waiting around all day for our turn, Ethan Te Harawira was finally born at 14.44. Things immediately went bad. He was flat & not breathing. They started resuscitation and worked for what felt like forever on our little boy. After approx 10 mins of trying to get him to breathe on his own, they wheeled him out of theatre to intubate & investigate. A chest X-ray confirmed a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.
Our local Hospital was not equipped to deal with our baby, so plans were made to transport him to Mater Mothers about 30 minutes away. He got settled & I got transferred to be with him about 5 hours later. Ethan was doing really well & was able to have his repair surgery done on day 2 of life. He was intubated for a further 3.5 days then put onto CPAP for 5.5 days. After CPAP he was able to switch to Hi-flow oxygen for another 5.5 days. After working on feeding, we were able to take our warrior home on day 20.
Ethan continued to get stronger at home, only having an occasional bout of bronchiolitis . However, just 3 weeks before he turned two, he suffered a bowel obstruction, requiring more surgery. He recovered quickly from that and was home a week later.
Today he is a happy healthy 3 almost 4 year old.”
Ethan celebrates his 4th birthday this month! Happy Birthday Ethan!!
