CMN to feature MUSC's miracle child, Logan Holt
When Logan Holt was 18 weeks old, his parents took him to Conway, to be treated for what they thought was a case of the croup.
Logan
Holt
His pediatrician, L.B. Courtney, M.D., immediately recognized that the little boy was suffering from something far more serious. The next day, Logan was airlifted to MUSC Children’s Hospital.
Here, doctors discovered “complete tracheal rings” that had narrowed Logan’s airway to the size of a pinhole, forcing him to fight for every breath. The condition is serious because it can turn a minor respiratory ailment, such as a cold or allergy, into a life-threatening episode in which the patient’s air supply is cut off altogether.
In an ongoing battle to keep Logan's airway open, doctors performed more than 75 surgical procedures during an 18-month period. During the most intense period of his treatment, Logan was undergoing surgery every two days. Because his condition required constant attention, he spent most of his young life in the hospital, including 544 consecutive days in the pediatric intensive care unit.
That all changed in April, when Biemann Othersen, M.D., and William Adamson, M.D., worked with Norbert Thompson, an engineer in Atlanta, to design a special silicon tube to be implanted at the base of Logan's trachea. The tube was designed to keep Logan’s airway open and provide structural support to his trachea, which had become flaccid due to repeated surgeries. This tube caused less irritation to his trachea than earlier models, meaning that Logan would no longer require frequent surgeries to remove scar tissue. His doctors believe that, over time, Logan’s windpipe will achieve a normal growth pattern, eliminating the need for the silicon tube.
In late April, Logan Holt was finally able to say goodbye to the doctors, nurses, therapists and volunteers at MUSC's Children's Hospital and return home to Loris. Today, his parents describe the joy of watching him squeal, chase his 7-year-old brother around the coffee table and breathe easily for the first time in his life. It's a victory they credit to their friends at MUSC Children's Hospital.
“I could never say enough about the doctors at the Children’s Hospital, and I could never sing enough praises for the nurses and the therapists,” says his mother, Tammy. “Each one of them treated Logan as if he were their own child, and they did everything they could to provide him with the most normal environment in the most unusual setting you can imagine.”
“That's the one thing that made the last 18 months easier for us to endure—knowing that we were only two hours away from the best specialists in the world for the kind of care Logan needed,” says his father, Dale. “Without them, there’s no telling where we’d be today.”
Make a pledge to CMN on June 3
Let your fingers do the walking and call 792-8000 or 1-888-245-1079
to make a pledge to the Children's Miracle Network Celebration Broadcast
during its annual broadcast June 3 to raise funds to help hospitalized
children.
Beginning at 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 3, the local CMN broadcast will air on WCSC-TV 5. Broadcast from the MUSC Harper Student Center at 45 Courtenay Drive, the event will continue until 7 p.m. Visitors are welcome.
All funds generated through the local broadcast stay with MUSC Children's Hospital. Since 1992, the broadcast has raised more than $5.9 million to help seriously ill children at MUSC Children's Hospital. The Children's Miracle Network, now in its 18th year, is affiliated with 170 children's hospitals throughout North America.
During the broadcast, viewers will meet some of MUSC's special champions—children who have beat the odds to become winners against illnesses such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell, heart and lung diseases, birth defects and severe trauma from accidents.
The broadcast will feature on-air celebrities Warren Peper and Debi
Chard, and the local stories of courageous young patients, their families
and the physicians who treat them.