Support Avery Ash's Fight and help bring him home!

Hi Friends of the Ash Family,

On Tuesday 1/28, after fighting a respiratory illness with no improvement, Scott and Courtney Ash's 9 month old son Avery was taken to the local hospital and was diagnosed with Influenza A. He also had bronchiolitis and croup symptoms. His respiratory health continued to decline and on Thursday in the middle of the night, Courtney took him to the ER and Avery was admitted to the hospital. They had tubes running through his nose, took an xray, and monitored him over 4 days. He was still wheezing, lethargic and had weak cries, but he was discharged and the medical staff told them to look out for other symptoms that could be more serious.

They were home for less than 2 hours before rushing back to the ER. He was intubated right away -- the first attempt the tube was too large for his tiny swollen throat. The second intubation he had so much mucous that it plugged the tube, causing him to be without oxygen to his brain for 14 minutes, and caused him to go into cardiac arrest. He was rushed to the Dallas Children's Hospital PICU Monday and Avery and his family have been there ever since. Meanwhile, Scott's parents, Rob and Margaret, were traveling and dropped everything to fly home to be with them and help care for Scott and Courtney's oldest son Quinn.

He's currently hooked up to a ventilator, constantly EEG monitored, and he's having seizure activity in his brain. The MRI is showing potential damage to parts of his brain, mainly in the vision area, but they are not certain of anything at this point. He's currently heavily medicated and on anti seizure meds.

They have a long road ahead of them and are currently taking things hour by hour. Their main focus is to do whatever possible to make sure Avery comes out of this nightmare as strong as possible, and to bring their baby boy home. Let's show them how much support they have in Montana and around the US. If you are able to share this link to your socials, send words of encouragement, include them in your prayers, I know they would greatly appreciate it! If you can help financially, any amount will help them with the mounting medical bills, loss of income to be there for their son, travel, etc.

Update from Courtney 2/7:

We are still in the PICU here at the Children's Hospital in Dallas. We will be here for at least weeks, possibly months. We do not know at this time, as we go day by day. The doctors are letting Avery tell them when he is ready and letting his body heal slowly.

He's been intubated since he crashed Monday night and most of the time he has been "breathing over" what the ventilation is giving him. Meaning, he is breathing more on his own. They did a test to see if he would do more breath work on his own and he did pass. They just had rounds and it seems that the tube will definitely stay in for the next few days at least while we monitor his brain activity for more seizures.

As far as Avery's organs, they look fairly good. Echo on his heart came back good, lungs and kidneys are functioning normally. His liver took a hit from the cardiac arrest but his numbers are trending in the right direction for a recovery.

Yesterday was the day we had been kind of holding our breathe for...MRI day. They want to wait closer to 72 hours for potential swelling. His MRI came back with two findings which are not normal for what they see in a cardiac arrest patient. One area was affected by the seizure he had after he crashed and the other is a little interesting...seems he has caught viral meningitis encephalitis (potentially). We are working with the neuro team trying to come up with the best plan. At the moment., it's just monitoring and seizure medication. Hopefully within the next 48 hours, the seizures will hopefully start to subside. To clarify: these seizures are sub clinical and in short bursts - though he had enough in a one hour span yesterday that they had to up his dosage and put him on multiple seizure meds.

Outside of the seizure activity, he's trending in the right direction or just staying stable. Pupils are reactive, gets agitated when they move him, change his diapers etc. They are worried about long term vision but we'll just have to wait to see how that progresses.

Quinn is doing ok. He knows Avery is sick and in the hospital but doesn't ask many questions. We are utilizing the Child Life resource at the hospital to help navigate this as a family and with Quinn. Either Scott or I stay at the hospital every night. His parents came to be with us and have been either with us at the hospital or with Quinn.

Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. We definitely are not out of the woods yet and it will be a long road ahead. Seems we will probably still be in the PICU for another week or two (hopefully a followup MRI will show decreased brain swelling and the seizures will subside (then we should hopefully be able to be moved out ICU) then no timeframe on how long we'll be in the hospital. We will try to update as much as possible. Squeeze your babies and each other extra hard!