meet Zachary

Zach was born at 33 weeks with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, we knew he would be born with this condition from 20 weeks gestation at our "big" ultrasound. Basically Zach's stomach, intestines and liver were in his chest, leaving the lungs little room to grow and squishing his heart. once born he was intubated and placed on a vent for the next 2 months. during this time frame zach had blood transfusions, between 4-6 xrays a day, and 4 blood gases taken a day to check his oxygenation. at 5 days old Zach had his repair surgery done to pull his organs back into his abdomen and close his diaphram hole. zach remained hospitalized for 6 months. during this time he recieved his second surgery to place his gbutton so we could feed him (he developed oral adversion and lost his suck reflex)
Zach came home in april 2008 and stayed home only 5 days before going into respitory faliure. once back in the PICU it was determined his pulmonary hypertension was the cause and after another 6 weeks on the vent he was able to come off with the help of liquid viagra. a month after his second homecoming Zach had a major seziure and was rushed back to the PICU, it was determined the cause was a subdural hematoma (blood on the brain) it was first thought the trama was caused by shaken baby syndrome (no way could this be true) and later was found thru MRI that Zach's brain was atrophied due to a brain injury probably at birth that caused brain cell to die and the brain to shrink, causing the "shake" to the head to have come from anything...neurosurgeon said he could have turned his head and had it occur! he also stated the blood was old, weeks, maybe months. (occuring in hospital we imagine) zach recieved his third surgery to remove blood from brain and a few days later came home again! Since this time Zach has been making strides, smiling and laughing, watching his brothers play, he has learned how to roll and is trying hard to crawl. Zach just turned 18 months old and is a joy to have in our lives. his current diagnosis' are Chronic lung disease, restrictive airway disease, brain atrophy, repaired subdural hematoma,repaired congenital diaphragmatic hernia, ex:preemie 33 weeks, scoliosis, gtube fed, GERD,pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary hypoplasia, history of seziures, global developmental delay, and hypotonia.