Gunnar's Story

By Bridgett Ericksen

Gunnar is our miracle, he is our life and he is our gift and here is our story. Gunnar was born August 18, 1998, at 10:00 p.m. at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. Gunnar was a large baby weighing in at 9 lbs 10 oz. and he was 23 1/2 inches long. As soon as Gunnar was born, he started to have complications.

He was having breathing problems right away and needed to be resuscitated. On further examination by his pediatrician, Dr. Christopher Johnson, it was determined that he had a herniated diaphragm (a hole in his diaphragm) which caused his intestines to move up and rest on his left lung which also caused his lung to be underdeveloped. After this discovery, at just 4 hours old, Gunnar was immediately sent to Children's Hospital in Seattle and underwent surgery to repair his diaphragm.

The risk that he would not make it through surgery was high. That night, I prayed more than I had prayed my entire life and we were blessed. Gunnar had several angels taking care of him and we will be forever grateful for each of them. Gunnar made it through surgery well, however, he had some other issues, for one, his left lung was not developed, but somehow, miraculously by 9 months old, it was fully developed. Gunnar also did so well after surgery that he was able to go home after 9 days. Usually when children are born with this problem, they either do not make it or they have to stay in the hospital for months to recover.

The care we received was amazing; we will never forget the staff that took care of our precious baby. Gunnar is currently 8 1/2 and has developed into a child that has mild autism, severe asthma and a pten mutation/over growth syndrome so he is not without health issues, however, we are so blessed that he survived, I can not imagine life without him nor can I imagine Children's Hospital not being there for us.

The doctor that performed the surgery to repair Gunnar's diaphragm is Dr. Edwin Hatch who we will know forever as our angel as well as all those very special nurses. We continue to have other angels that we continue to see on a regular basis, Dr. Charles Cowan who is guiding us through autism/behavioral concerns, Dawn Earl with Genetics team who is guiding us through the pten mutation and research, Dr. Sawin who has helped us through multiple surgeries. We are very thankful for each one of you as well as all the nurses, emergency staff, nutritionalists, x-ray techs, blood techs, ultrasound techs and so on and so on. You are all a part of our extended family and we cannot express enough how much you all and this hospital mean to us. Thank you for always being there for us and helping us through some very trying times.