Mary and Chayton

Mary: Hi, my name is Mary. My son, Chayton, was just like any other little boy until he was about three years old. We noticed he was falling down more than his older brothers, and he seemed to be weaker than them. When Chayton got pneumonia, the doctors said it was because he wasn’t swallowing correctly, which caused him to get some of his food into his lungs. Soon he stopped walking and needed a wheel chair. The doctors told us it would keep getting worse. They said he needed a feeding tube. That surgery was really rough on Chayton. He stayed on the ventilator in the hospital for a long time. It was scary. The doctors wanted to do a trach but my husband and I didn’t want Chayton to have to go through another surgery. After three months in the hospital, Chayton finally came home. At that point, he just needed a mask to help him breathe…he was on a BiPAP machine, not the trach. That was a year ago, and he still uses the BiPAP. As Chayton gets sicker, we know we will have to keep talking with the doctors about a trach. At this point, we just don’t think a trach will be right for him.