Hunter Thomas Reeve was born on March 12, 2009 at 2:38 in the morning at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital. Hunter weighed 6 pounds and was four weeks early but appeared to be a healthy baby boy.Although Hunter was eating well he was steadily losing weight. Three days after his birth Hunter was released from the hospital and made the trip home. Due to the weight loss Hunter was brought back to the St. Thomas hospital and after a series of tests it was found that Hunter was severely dehydrated. An IV line was started in the top of Hunter’s head because he was too dehydrated for the nurses to find veins anywhere else in his body.Hunter was rushed by ambulance to the Children’s Hospital in London, where he stayed on the IV while doctors and nurses diligently tried to determine what was causing the dehydration. By this time Hunter was down to almost four pounds and struggling to stay alive. Hunter fought hard (even managing to rip out the lines that the nurses kept putting in) and was stabilized thanks to the staff in the Pediatric Critical Care Unit. Without their care Hunter would not have lived through the night.After exhausting all of the non invasive tests, doctors from many specialty units were brought in to try and find out what was causing Hunter’s illness. Dr. Bax of the Pediatric Gastroenterology team was brought in, and in Hunter’s first week of life, he had his first surgery. A sample of Hunter’s small intestine was obtained through a biopsy and sent off for analysis. This is a rare procedure to have done on a baby and is not part of routine testing. Miraculously enough, this procedure determined the cause of Hunter’s decline: his small intestine was not absorbing any nutrients from his food. In fact, Hunter was outputting more than he was taking in.Hunter was diagnosed with an extremely rare and potentially life threatening disease of his intestines called Microvillus Inclusion Disease (MID). This disease prevents Hunter from absorbing any nutrients through his small intestine making him completely dependent on Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN). TPN is very hard on Hunter’s liver but the only other option is a small intestine transplant.At first it seemed like a very grim prognosis as the complications with transplant are many. But there is hope: an experimental treatment called Omegaven. Omegaven couples Omega 3 fatty acids with TPN which greatly reduces the risk of liver damage and may assist in its repair. Unfortunately, Omegaven is not currently covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) or independent insurance companies.This disease only affects one in five million people. Hunter is the twelfth known person suffering from this disorder in North America right now. Currently there is no cure for Microvillus Inclusion Disease. Hunter needs constant medical care and the cost can be overwhelming to a family. There is very little coverage for in home support for families battling MID; as this disease is rare it is not typically covered by OHIP. Although Hunter’s Omegaven is currently being paid for it is unknown how long it will remain covered and what challenges this little boy will face in the future. Because MID is such a rare disease more research is needed to find other treatment options that are not as detrimental to the health of those affected. Hopefully someday this research will lead to a cure. Hunter needs your help to stay home. With your support we hope to make this dream a reality. Please help – because every baby deserves to grow up.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Sorry for the delay







It's been awhile since my last post...it always takes us a bit of time to get back into the groove of things....and to gain our comfort level back after an infection.

Hunter has been vomiting since his infection. We were told this infection sort of pushed him over the edge and to be patient since it will likely take him longer to get back to himself...unfortunately we have not been giving him his oral feeds due to the vomiting so we feel he is losing out on keeping those skills. He does seem to be getting better though...personality wise he is back to himself...he only vomits maybe 1-3 times per day and we started giving him one feed per day to get him back into it. He doesn't seem to have forgotten too much...

The rubber pants were not helpful...we have moved on to adult incontinence pads in his diaper...the O'Connor's gave us this idea and it does seem to help. He still has some leaks but its much less than before...we have started wrapping his line at bedtime with gauze and plastic wrap...haven't had any poop touch his line since the infection so it will be interesting to see if this prevents the infections or if they are coming from his "leaky gut". We also started putting 70% ethanol into his line 3 times per week to kill any possible infections growing in the line. We have had some difficulty extracting it so its unknown if his line is moving inside his vein or if there is a clot somewhere in the line...its more likely that it's moving since the heparin comes out fine on all the other days and we can flush saline through it without issue...

Since our last post Hunter has started sitting on his own and during the Thanksgiving weekend his bottom two teeth came through!! He's getting to be such a big boy.....and he's so good...just a happy kid all the time....well...ok...most of the time!! haahah

I've posted some pics of Hunter....I think he's undecided on whether to walk or crawl first...maybe he'll just roll through his first year!!
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