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A young family from Peachland is currently in Edmonton waiting for a heart transplant for their 8-month-old baby boy.
Steven and Heather Lazeski's son, James Michael, was born on Jan. 22 at Kelowna General Hospital.
The next day everyone “returned home healthy” to Peachland, according to James’ aunt Chelsea Dawn Hallick.
The following week, however, James’ health took a “shocking turn.”
“After an ambulance ride to Kelowna General he was confirmed hypothermic, with heart failure and was in cardiogenic shock,” Hallick explained.
Hallick said they were later transferred to BC Children’s Hospital.
“Doctors intubated and stabilized James the best they could before transferring Heather and newborn James by air ambulance to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver," she said.
Heather Lazeski told KelownaNow that a later transfer from Vancouver to Edmonton caused James to go into cardiac arrest twice.
She said: "He went into cardiac arrest once on [the] flight over Salmon Arm area. He needed chest compressions for around 10 minutes.
"Then again he went into cardiac arrest en route in the ambulance once we got into Edmonton. Chest compressions were done all the way up to PCICU (40 mins). Then he was crashed onto ECMO which is life support."
She said James suffered kidney and liver damage because of the cardiac arrests.
"He had to have dialysis and they slowly improved. Then he had to have a brain CT and an EEG to make sure he had brain activity before they transferred him onto a VAD (ventricular assist device)," Lazeski told KelownaNow.
Lazeski said they had remained in Vancouver for 10 days before transferring to Edmonton due to the hospital transplant program at Vancouver being cancelled in July.
“It was cancelled due to physician conflict and the PSAs failure to resolve the issue in a timely manner,” said Lazeski.
“(I) was in Vancouver for 10 days before being transferred to Edmonton Mazankowski Heart Center on Aug. 10. We were on the Pediatric Cardiac ICU there until Aug. 31, then transferred to acute care in the Stollery,” said Lazeski.
Lazeski told KelownaNow that doctors diagnosed James' condition as “hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with left ventricular noncompaction” and that his heart is “currently supported by a Berlin Heart pumping his left side of heart for him”.
Lazeski said that another mother had to wait around 16 months for a donor heart and that they are currently at the Stollery in Edmonton, waiting.
“We are here until a donor heart is available that matches with him. We are mostly stable and okay, with a few hiccups including fever, nausea, vomiting. Just working on developing as best a normal baby should and trying to gain weight to get prepared for the big surgery,” said Lazeski.
Hallick has set up an online fundraiser to help the family as they focus on James’ recovery.
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