Help our baby get urgent medical care

My wife and I arrived in Europe/ Latvia on December 18 - 2019, from Vancouver / Canada for medical treatment. We were trying to have a child, and the clinic we were working with was in the capital Riga/Latvia. Unfortunately, we did not know a pandemic was going to hit in three months. Latvia went into lockdown, and we got trapped in Latvia.

 

During the lockdown, my wife got pregnant, and the doctors advised her not to travel back to Canada due to the high risk of a miscarriage. As this is our first child, we did not want to risk it, so we hunkered down in Latvia and weathered the storm. We did our homework and started doing a lot of testing to make sure our child was healthy. We did a range of genetic testing - amniocentesis - and heart check-ups. All tests came out clean.

 

On March 17, 2021, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Our son was born at 37 weeks and weighed 2.3 kg. My wife had a C-section due to uterine dysfunction. With all the pain, there was still joy in the delivery room; we are now parents. We have been trying for many years. Sadly the same day in the morning, a maternity hospital doctor walked into our room and told us the devastating news. He informed us that our son could not consume food because his esophagus had not formed right, and it was not connected with his stomach but got connected with his trachea, so all the food was going into his lungs. He was diagnosed with Tracheoesophageal Fistula, Esophageal Atresia. Our son was rushed to the emergency room in Riga's Children Hospital, where more difficult news was waiting for us.

 

While at the Children's Hospital, he was diagnosed with a list of problems that sent us into shock. His diagnoses:

 

 

His chances of survival were starting to diminish. He was scheduled for his first surgery the next day. He underwent his first fistula surgery, and it was successful. A few days later, he was consuming food. The more difficult heart surgeries were coming up next. The German Heart Center Clinic for Congenital Heart Defects in Berlin joined in to consult in the surgeries. In the weeks after, our son went through two major heart surgeries and pulmonary artery branch bandings. The longest surgery was 15 hours long. I remember a part of me died while waiting for that surgery to be over.

 

Fifteen hours later, our son came out of the surgery room, barely hanging on to dear life. The surgeon informed us that the surgery went successfully, but the next three days would be the longest in our son's life, and his chances of survival are very small. The Intensive Care Unit doctors worked tirelessly to keep our son alive. Our son got through the first three days with less than 50% chance of survival. He had multiple organ failures, and the doctors told us that our son might not make it. My eyes were full of tears as I asked the doctors not to give up on our son. I never gave up in life, and I know my son would not either. My son's lungs shut down, his kidneys suffered terrible damage and stopped working, edema swelled up his little baby body, and he was put on dialysis. I write these words while tears run down my face as I remember seeing my son fade away piece by piece every day in front of my eyes. I wish no parent would see what my wife and I have witnessed. Our son was dying fast. We still did not give up. We asked the doctor to keep pushing through, and they did.

 

Weeks later, our son started opening his eyes with all the tubes in his body. My heart sank as I knew he was fighting to survive. He was in so much pain, and I did not know how to stop it. I sat down and held his little baby hands and asked him not to give up. His lungs were collapsing as they were completely soaked. There were catheters everywhere in his body. Some catheters were feeding him medication, and others were draining the liquids and blood pooling in his body. He did not want to give up and kept on fighting for weeks and weeks. The doctors could not believe that he was pushing through.

 

After months of fighting, our son gave us his first smile. It was the most beautiful thing my eyes have ever witnessed in my life. Due to all the damage from the surgery, our son could not breathe unassisted. For some unknown reason, he could not consume food either, so nutrients were being delivered into his little body through a broviac catheter going directly into his chest.

 

The hospital, at this stage, felt that our son was capable enough to leave the intensive care unit and head into the regular ward, and that's what happened. During his stay in the ward, he got infected with multidrug-resistant Enterobacter cloacae through his broviac catheter. The infection moved into his lungs and caused pneumonia. His immune system was too weak to fight the infection. His lungs were already weak from the heart surgery, so he was moved back into the Intensive care unit again after one week of being out. His lungs were failing fast, and his body was deteriorating again. The hospital wanted him to eat more, but he could not for some reason, so surgery was scheduled to see why there was an obstruction in his stomach. Our son underwent Laparotomy surgery to check for stomach adhesions. Surgeons did not find anything. The hospital did not know what was causing his stomach problem. Before his Laparotomy surgery, the hospital checked his heart to prepare him for surgery and found something that broke us completely. The bacterial infection had moved into his heart, and now he was diagnosed with endocarditis. The bacteria has gone into his heart and have built vegetation inside. He was immediately put on strong antibiotics for six weeks. During the antibiotics course, his lungs started failing more, and damage was happening due to being intubated for many months and surviving on a mechanical ventilator. He was diagnosed with Tracheobronchomalacia. His lungs and trachea started collapsing. The hospital urged us to do a Tracheostomy to save his lungs from complete damage. Our son now breathes from his throat.

 

After weeks of antibiotic treatment, he has moved, again, out of the ICU into the pulmonology ward for lung care. During his stay in the pulmonology ward, we started noticing strange things. Our son began having fevers, constant vomiting. Hospital did a blood test, and traces of fungal infection were found in his bloodstream. From bacterial endocarditis, we went to fungal endocarditis. His body went into shock, and now he is back in the ICU again, fighting for his life. He now has sepsis, and his kidneys started failing again.

 

This is where we need your help. Our son requires complex and extensive care. We are trying to move our child to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver. BC Children's Hospital is equipped for extremely complex cases like our son's case. We have contacted the Canadian embassy in Riga for help; unfortunately, the embassy cannot cover air ambulance costs.

 

We are asking you for help to get our son the proper care that he desperately needs. We called many air ambulance companies to move our child urgently. All quotes were nothing less than $140,000 CAD for the trip to Canada. The prices are way more than we can ever afford.

 

What will the funds be used for?

 

The money will be used to get our Child to Vancouver for urgent medical care.

 

Fund will cover:

 

 

Our son has been in the hospital for six months and counting. He has undergone eleven surgeries. He has never been breastfed by his mother and never saw the beautiful blue skies outside the hospital. Also, due to his Tracheostomy, he is not able to produce sounds.

 

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Here's a list of all our child's diagnoses:

 

Diagnoses / active problems

 

 

Surgeries