Update on Ayden

Hello all. We just wanted to give you an update on Ayden’s progress.

So far today they have allowed him to warm up to a normal temperature and taken him off of his muscle relaxing drug. He was being kept cold to help preserve his body/brain and he was on the muscle relaxing drug because him being so cold would cause him to shiver and that could have caused increased brain pressure and they just wanted him to be a calm/peaceful as possible. 

Ayden also went in for a CT Scan on his airways to see for sure what was going on with his trachea. It turns out their first prediction was incorrect and he was born with 3 different abnormalities related to his respiratory system. They are as follows:

1. Sling – This is was caused him to choke so easily. Ayden has a large blood vessel wrapped around his trachea and as a result his trachea is less than half of the size it should be. On a normal person the food that he choked on would have just fallen into his lungs and it may have caused some pneumonia but since he has a reduced diameter the food particle got lodged in his trachea and caused him to lose breathing function.

2. Pulmonary veins – There are 4 veins that run from the lungs to the upper left chamber of the heart. These blood vessels carry oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. In Ayden’s case one of the four blood vessels runs to the incorrect chamber of his heart and the blood from that vessel is returned to his lungs to be re-oxygenated and not pumped to the rest of his body. According to the doctor this is not a concern at this point.

3. Bronchial Malacia - This is a weakened bronchial tube. When a person inhales the bronchial tube increases in diameter and upon exhalation the bronchial tube decreases in diameter. In Ayden’s case his weakened bronchial tube reduces in size so much on exhalation that he can not fully release all of the air in his lungs. As a result the volume of air left in his lungs keeps increasing until he can no longer breathe efficiently.

With that – There will be a group of doctors that are going to discuss this and make a decision on which route to go to fix these issues. We will keep you updated on what the next route pertaining to these is. 

As far as any brain injury goes – that is still a waiting game. They are hopefully going to do a MRI soon to get more of an idea.

Ayden is also still sedated. He will be so until he starts breathing on his own. That too is a waiting game.

I hope you all are doing well and that you are looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving. Eat some turkey for Ayden (or whatever you prefer to eat, lol)! Oh and we received about 50 cards today!! Again, please keep praying for Ayden. He’s a very strong boy and with God behind him we believe miracles can happen.

All our Love,

Catherine, Kenji, & Ayden

xxoo