This blog was originally created to disseminate information about Andrew, our son who was born on June 15, 2007. Andrew was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) that allowed abdominal organs (stomach, intestines, etc) to migrate into his chest cavity during development. This prohibited normal lung growth, making it difficult for him to live without significant life support, including a ventilator, a lung bypass machine called ECMO, and a long list of medications.
Andrew spent the next five months at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, undergoing multiple operations for the hernia repair, intestinal rearrangement, stomach tube insertion, etc. Multiple attempts to help him breathe on his own without a ventilator were unsuccessful due to a number of anatomical and developmental difficulties. Andrew's failure to progress and an abundance of overwhelmingly unfavorable test results led us to remove him from life support and let nature take its course on November 19, 2007.
We greatly appreciate the time we were able to spend with Andrew, and this blog continues as a source for information, a tribute to his memory, and a continuation of our lives without him present. From the emotional to the mundane, our lives have been forever changed by his presence; those lives are now chronicled here.
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