Craig Kinney
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Craig Kinney is a 14 year old young man born with Down Syndrome. He lives in Massachusetts with his mom, dad, and two younger sisters. Up until last year, Craig was a very healthy young man. Beyond yearly tubes for his ears, there was no medical problems. Last February 12, 2001, his world and his family's world changed. Craig developed strep throat on February 10, 2001, by February 12, 2001 Craig was admitted to our local hospital for IV fluids. Within an hour respiratory distress developed. To our amazement, the first battle was to locate a Pediatric ICU bed. Boston hospitals were full, Rhode Island Hospitals were full. The closest hospital was located in the western part of Massachusetts, in Springfield. A medflight was on its way. Upon arrival the medflight would not airlift Craig until he was intubated. Mom and Craig flew out to Springfield within 45 minutes. Dad drove the 2 1/2 hour drive. Craig was admitted to the pediatric ICU and was diagnosed with strep pneumonia. He was intubated for 10 days, extubated and transferred to our local hospital after 3 weeks. He was then discharged home after a weeks stay at our local hospital. Within a couple of days home, we noticed Craig was developing labored breathing with a loud noise with every breath he took. Our local pediatrician examined Craig and diagnosed him with stridor and recommended an appointment with our local ENT. Our local ENT took one look at Craig and said stridor and notified his staff to observe what stridor is. He scheduled a bronchoscopy thinking there was a polyp on Craig vocal cord (which can happen after intubation) after his bronchoscopy the doctor was concerned because the stridor noise was still there. Before leaving the hospital a CAT Scan was performed and Craig went home with large doses of steroids. That evening Craig's ENT called to report that the CAT Scan did show a narrowing of the trachea near the corina. We were to continue steroid treatment for a month and repeat CAT Scan. Within a week Craig's stridor got worse. On April 1, 2001 we were at the ER and a repeat CAT Scan was performed and the narrowing was even worse. A few calls later and Craig and mom were on there way to MGH. Craig was admitted to Pediatric ICU. Three days later Craig was rushed to the O.R. with acute respiratory distress. His trachea closed to a 1mm opening. After two dilations per week for a couple of weeks it was decided that resection and reconstruction of Craig's trachea would have to be performed. The surgery went great with 10 day hospital stay, things were looking good. On the 9th day Craig wasn't sounding good. An emergency O.R. trip found the reconstruction fell apart. The next morning after another trip to the O.R. Craig now had a tracheostomy tube. The trachea stenosis has scared down and Craig has no air exchange above the tracheostomy tube. No airway, no voice, no nothing. We did finally come home at the end of May 2001. Now we have nurses at home nurses at school, weekly and bi-weekly visits to Boston and a slow recovery. Craig's lungs were so badly scared from the pneumonia that healing is taking time. Craig, mom, and dad did visit Cincinnati for a second option in October 2001. We are waiting for the day when reconstruction can be attempted again. I can’t wait to hear his voice again!!
