Sacha Michael Chenier

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Sacha's Miraculous Story

Sacha's story begins in April 2002, when we learned that Jackie was pregnant.  We were elated, as we had been trying to have a second child.  There was some concern at the time we found out Jackie was pregnant, however, as she had been having some severe abdominal pains.  As a result, the doctors ordered an ultrasound to see what was causing the pain.  The ultrasound technician was unable to locate the foetus, and they suspected at that point that it was likely an ectopic pregnancy, as one of Jackie's fallopian tubes was swollen.  Subsequently, Jackie was kept at the hospital for a few days, as they feared the tube may burst before the body expelled the foetus naturally.  Less than a week later the hospital conducted another ultrasound to see the status of things, and amazingly the the tests showed that the foetus was somehow now located in the proper place, and the swelling in tube had gone away.

Sacha Michael Chenier was born December 19th, 2002 after a fairly normal pregnancy.  Upon Jackie's arrival at the hospital things seemed to be going relatively well.  Unfortunately this changed when it came time to deliver the baby.  Sacha became stuck, and had to be delivered by emergency C-section.  He had difficulty breathing upon being born, but seemed to be doing okay given the rough delivery.  He was kept in an incubator overnight for heat and extra oxygen. 

On December 20th, the nurses noticed that Sacha was having seizures.  He was transferred by helicopter to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa.  Testing there indicated his brain was severely swollen due to a lack of oxygen, known in medical circles as Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE).  Over the next few days many test were conducted, and his seizures were stopped with a combination of phenobarbital and other medications.  

We were advised on December 23rd that the swelling of his brain had caused severe irreversible damage, and that there appeared to be virtually no brain activity.  Sacha's reflexes were absent, and he did not respond to stimuli or pain.  Other than the fact he was breathing on his own, we were told he was for all intents and purposes "brain dead".  His brain stem, which controls the basic reflexes such as breathing, was also damaged, and they expected as things worsened that he would likely lose this ability too.  We were told that Sacha, who was comatose, would likely only live a few weeks, and at best would remain in a perpetual vegetative state.

We returned home on December 24th in order to try to have a "normal" Christmas morning for our two and a half year old son Sebastien.  As you can imagine it was very difficult for us to enjoy Christmas day while our hearts were in so much pain.  Somehow we made it through the morning, and Sebastien enjoyed opening his gifts that Santa had left under the tree.  We returned to the Children's Hospital (CHEO) in Ottawa later Christmas afternoon.  We spent a few hours visiting Sacha, then went and had a nice Christmas meal at Jackie's mom's.  At around 10:00 p.m., Jackie and I returned to CHEO to see our baby boy.  As I was walking into the neonatal intensive care unit, I heard Jackie yell at the nurse "what did you do?".  I assumed things had taken a turn for the worse, and Sacha was on a ventilator.  To my utter surprise, I walked in to find our baby wide awake, crying, and moving his arms.  You can imagine our joy, as we had been told several times in the preceding days, by the best doctor's at CHEO that our son would never wake up.  We were thrilled and overcome with emotion.  The doctor on duty was flabbergasted, and could not explain why Sacha was awake. It would seem that there truly are miracles on Christmas.  The nurse on duty was nice enough to take several Polaroid's of our magical moment.  She later confided to us that she was very touched to have been a part of the whole event.

Further testing was conducted over the following few days.  Although Sacha appeared to be doing much better, the tests had not changed.  As unbelievable as it sounds, the EEG still showed virtually no brain activity.  At this point we were told by the doctors that the brain is a mystery, and only time would tell how well Sacha does.

Sacha still lacked suck and gag reflexes, and due to the danger of aspiration he had to continue to be fed through a nose tube.  The doctors advised that he may never regain his suck or gag reflexes, and would very likely require indefinite tube feeding.  Sacha's amazing improvement continued.  Within a few days he had regained his gag and suck reflexes, and began eating from a bottle.

We were able to bring him home within a few weeks (which was much sooner than originally expected).

Since coming home, Sacha has been receiving regular occupational and physio therapy, in addition to returning to the children's hospital for further testing.  He is currently taking medications to help control his seizures.  We a very pleased to say that subsequent EEG's (in February and April 2003) now show brain wave activity (although still abnormal for child his age).  At this point he has been diagnosed with epilepsy (due to his seizures), cortical visual impairment (blindness due to his brain damage), gastric reflux, multicystic encephalomalacia (multiple fluid filled cavities in his brain as a result of the damage), microcephaly (smaller than average head circumference), and cerebral palsy.

Sacha's latest news:

• July 29th, 2003: Sacha surprised us with the the most beautiful smile.  We hope to see him do it more often.

• October 22nd, 2003:  Sacha continues to amaze us.  With allot of effort and determination, he was able to very slowly crawl across the mat in his therapy session today.  Despite taking quite some time (20 minutes) to make it across, Sacha showed us just how much of a little fighter he is. 

• November 19th, 2003:  Sacha started laughing today for the first time.  We're not sure what he found so amusing, but we look forward to hearing this wonderful sound of joy much more often.

• Christmas 2003:  We have started a new family tradition to celebrate Sacha's return to us on Christmas night.   Click here to read about our new Christmas Tradition

• April 9th, 2004:  Sacha was admitted to the Children's Hospital on March 12th.  He has been extremely irritable and lethargic for the past several weeks.  We have also been struggling to get him to drink enough, as he seems to no longer have a desire to suck his bottle.  The doctors seem to think he was having problems with his reflux.  They have adjusted his medications to help, so hopefully that will fix his irritability.  He also had surgery to place a g-tube to help get liquids into him.  Hopefully it will help us keep him better hydrated, and avoid the danger of him aspirating on the liquids.

• January 2007: Sacha will be having surgery on January 15th 2007, to repair his left hip which is coming out of socket due to his severe CP.  The surgeon will also cut some muscles to reduce the strain on the affected hip.  Sacha will need to be in a cast for several weeks afterwards as the hip heals.  Please pray that things go smoothly.
   
• March 2007:  Sacha's recovering fairly well from his hip osteotomy and hamstring release surgery.  It's been a rough couple of months but, he's finally returning to being the happy little guy we know.

Sacha Michael Chenier
October 2006

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