Smith’s Story

Site created on October 16, 2018

As some of you know, Smith was raced to HCMC Sunday night after we found him having difficulty breathing while in his crib.  Amazingly, EMS arrived in less than one minute and were easily able to intubate him and transfer to the hospital.  The team is convinced that his heart never stopped and this was purely a respiratory arrest. We are now in the PICU here where he has been extremely stable but remains intubated and sedated.  The team at HCMC has been amazing and we feel so lucky to have such great nurses and doctors working around the clock to help Smith.  Reid and I think if we let smith take his tube out (which he is constantly trying to do) he'd be just fine.  He is a bit of a medical mystery, which is something you never want your child to be.  We have ruled out any issues with his brain (including injury from lack of of oxygen), heart issues, lung issues, infection, etc.  Doctors are thinking that there may a narrowing of this trachea.  So tomorrow Smith will go for a bronchoscopy and we will hopefully have an answer (that is easy to fix).  We will keep everybody updated.  And thank you for all your love and support. It really means a lot to us.


Please forward to anyone we may have missed.  

Newest Update

Journal entry by Laura Lenz

Today we made it home.  It is a great feeling to all be back together. The last two weeks have been surreal, and at the end of it, we cannot be more thankful to have brought our same little Smithy home. We have so many people to thank from the EMS team that was down the street from our house and was able to intubate Smith on scene, to the amazing Emergency Department team at HCMC who had him stabilized quicker than anything I have seen, to the docs and nurses at HCMC who provided amazing care making sure Smith was safe while trying to determine what was wrong, to the wonderful team at Children's who managed his airway, completed his workup and full recovery and got us as parents ready to take him home again.  We sure feel lucky for living in a city with such incredible medical care. And a special thanks to all our family and friends who have been by our side through this ordeal.  We could not have done this without you all.  Love you!



But we have seen a strength in both our kids and each other that we now realize we can get through anything.  We are begging Smith not to test us again...
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