Help save Sawyer and bring him back home

Little Sawyer has only spent nine days of his life with his family: His twin sister Sierra, his parents Dave and Brittany, and his older sibling Brett and Brielle, who barely got a chance to hold their little brother.

 

Instead, he's spent most of his time in this world in the newborn intensive care unit battling blood clots and infections, fighting just to keep his legs.

Now, Dave and Brittany are looking for any support you can give to help get Sawyer the best care he can and to help them manage the high cost of doing everything they can to keep their baby, from long hospital stays to an emergency MedFlight to Boston Children's Hospital.

 

Sawyer arrived on Feb. 3rd, along with his twin sister Sierra. Since then, Brittany and Dave have poured their hearts into finding the best care for Sawyer, which means navigating costly hospital bills. We're asking family, friends -- and those we haven't met yet -- to give anything they can to help Brittany and Dave weather this storm and help Sawyer get every bit of care he can come home again safe and sound.

 

A message from Brittany of all the trials Sawyer has faced so far:

 

On Saturday, March 5th, (exactly 30 days old and only 9 of those days at home), I went to change sawyers diaper and his right leg was purple, 3x the size, and rock hard. I couldn’t move it at all. He was rushed by ambulance to Milford hospital, where they needed to revive him.

 

 

 

He wasn’t breathing. His blood sugars were so low the machine couldn’t read them. His temp was cold. About 20 nurses, medics, and doctors worked on him for 2-3 hours, placing a breathing tube (which collapsed his left lung a little), a scalp IV, an IO in his left leg that ended up blowing, and getting him stable enough to be transported.

 

Sawyer was MedFlighted via helicopter to Boston Children's Hospital Saturday afternoon. They have discovered he has an occlusive blood clot that goes from his right knee, up to a vein in his stomach, and down into his left femur. He is on threatened limb protocol for both legs.

 

 

He has sepsis, and MSSA staph infection in his blood as well as fluid they have drained from around his left lung. He is on blood thinners and lots of antibiotics.

 

On the 8th, he went into surgery for a central line they placed in his neck (inter-jugular) due to all the access problems they’ve been having. They discovered in the operating room that his left lung was collapsed again, due to pleural effusion (fluid around the lung causing pressure and the collapse) so they also placed a chest tube to drain that fluid in the left side.

 

He had an EEG done on Thursday to check for seizures. But luckily that was clear and negative for any seizure activity. They hope to place a different central line next week if his blood cultures come back negative for infection since they placed that neck central line while the infection was still active in his blood.

The clot is still unbelievably large, but the medicines have started to work as the nurses can now feel pulses in his legs instead of needing the Doppler to find them. He has had and continues to need a catheter to expel his urine -- he is not peeing on his own.

 

He has gained over 3 lbs of weight just from the fluid and is extremely swollen, which they are trying to slowly fix. They have started giving him 3 mL of breast milk every 3 hours (in comparison he was getting 60+ mL every 3 hours before this). He is still on a ventilator but is now participating in breathing instead of the machine doing it all for him.

 

 

He is expected to be in the NICU for at least 6-8 weeks. He is becoming more stable but it continues to be day by day. They haven’t ruled out surgery to remove the clot yet but are hoping to avoid it. We are so thankful for the prayers he's been getting.

 

We thought we were going to lose him last week and are so grateful he's slowly on the path to healing.

 

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Thank you to anyone who reads or shares this. Please consider giving whatever you can to help Dave, Brittany and of course Sawyer, get through this ordeal.