Jonah's Update

Jonah’s Up Date

Through the busy season of this past Christmas which included family contacts Jonah has contracted a serious cold. Jessika, his mom, writes the following for all of us. Perhaps it will help you to pray more intelligently for their family.

What many take for granted with the common cold has the potential to take a life as well. This is very serious – please pray for Jonah.

~ Pastor Murray ~

Jessika Van Spronsen writes…
1. Jonah has a cold. I took him to the emergency room on Saturday after he had a fever of 39.4 (104.8 for those of you that use F.) There they completed multiple tests that concluded he has a viral cold, not the flu, and that his left lung was filling up with mucous. This is serious...Jonah as you all know can drown in his own mucous because of his body’s inability to clear infection from the lungs.

2. So they put him on a medication called Cefzil that provides the antibodies Jonah needs to help dry his lungs out. I also, (just like when you have a child with CF), have to massage Jonahs back while hanging him 1/2 upside down, to help clear his lungs out. This I can tell you Jonah does not enjoy...but it has to be done.

3. Today I took Jonah to see his pediatrician. Jonah still has his cold, and is getting better, but not as quick as they hoped he would. So, Jonah has been put under quarantine. This means no body is allowed around Jonah, except of course George, myself and Sammy. We are trying to get him better for surgery, as a delay now would be hard on Jonah as he needs this surgery to help alleviate his acid reflux that is burning his throat.

4. Jonahs lungs are damaged as a result of this and they are planning on placing him on a puffer if his lungs don't start to heal soon. The doctors, both his Pediatrician, and his ENT (ear nose and throat from Sick Kids) talked to each other, and then ENT called me and gave me a new set of rules.

So here are the new rules:

a) From November-April NO SCHOOL AGED CHILDREN WHAT SO EVER ARE ALLOWED AROUND JONAH. This includes his school aged Aunts and Uncles, cousins etc. He is not to be exposed to any of them between these months for as long as he has a tracheotomy tube. This includes Christmas time. If George or myself are around school aged children (4-18 yrs of age), before we can touch Jonah we must come home and immediately put our clothes into the washing machine, have a shower and change into clothes that we haven't touched before the shower took place. We must treat Jonah like he has no immunity at all.

b) if and when George and I come home from grocery shopping/work/outside of the home activities- we have to do the same as above...We can empty the grocery bags, and then remove our clothes, put them in the washing machine, and then have a shower before we can go near Jonah.

c) If you do come into our house, you need to make sure that you have not been in contact with anyone who is sick for 14 days, and then before you touch Jonah, you must wash your hands, sanitize them, and then you can touch him. If you have school aged children, we ask that you not come around Jonah during the months of November-April, as you can be carrying multiple bacterias on your clothing.

d) Jonah is not allowed to have ANY visitors during his hosital stay. This is to protect his already weakened immunity from the surgery, as there is no guarentee that you have not come into contact with anyone sick while in the hospital for Sick Children on your way up to see him.

e) Jonah is quarentined for the next 4 weeks..this includes the week of surgery and the week following surgery to ensure that he is kept safe and healthy.

I know these sound like desperate measures, but this is Jonah's life we are talking about. He is unable to fight off a cold like the rest of us, as he does not have the "filters" in his trach that we do in our noses. He is a tough little guy, but on the inside he needs a lot more protection than most can ever imagine. This is exactly why we had our rules in place, and the consequences of breaking those rules is all of the above. It is unfortunate and not fair to Jonah that it has come down to this, as it means that Jonah will no longer have a birthday party on his birthday, due to the fact that his family (grandparents included) have young children and cannot be around him during the month of his birthday.

The doctor asked me which I would rather have: Christmas or Jonah and the choice was a no brainer. We would rather have Jonah in our lives than 1000 Christmas'. We are not being overprotective or have tunnel vision when it comes to Jonah. We are protecting him from this ever happening again. They told me that if the swelling in his throat wasn't there, we would have woken up to a dead child. All because a sick child was brought into my house against the rules. So we are going to adhere to the above rules, no matter what. We had originally asked the doctors if we could have Jonah's young aunt and uncles around him for Christmas, and they had told us yes, as long as none of them are sick, a fact we had relayed to everyone, but unfortunately it was not adhered to. George and I are quite angry over all that has happened as in a blink of an eye we could have lost our precious little boy.

This is all based on doctor recommendations, and we listen to the doctors that saved Jonah's life in the first place.