Yolanda* wants her son to survive. On Tuesday, a Superior Court judge ordered that her 5-year-old boy be extubated after more than four months in a coma. The mother who almost lost her son in a drowning confided in The Press.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“All I want is for my child to come home, no matter how serious his condition,” says the woman, who does not allow herself to be overwhelmed by emotions.
On June 12, Yolanda went out shopping with her husband. Her three children then remained under the supervision of their grandmother, who cannot swim. “When we got back, we found my mother unconscious in the pool. My husband took her out, maneuvered her. When she revived, she told us that she was looking for my child under the water,” she says. The pool water was brown and cloudy.
We called 911 and I shouted “help, help” for the neighborhood to come and help us.
Yolanda
The child remained underwater for 15 to 20 minutes, according to the Superior Court’s decision rendered on Tuesday. Maneuvers were practiced for about 60 minutes before the boy’s heartbeat resumed.
Since his arrival at the Sainte-Justine hospital, the child has been “ventilo-assisted” by means of a tube introduced into his trachea. He is fed by force-feeding. His brain is “severely” affected.
However, there are signs that the child could breathe independently. The medical staff therefore want to remove the endotracheal tube, which is contraindicated in the boy’s situation. The tube could cause “serious, even fatal” damage, doctors say.
Yolanda is not against extubation. However, she wants her son to be reintubated if he is struggling to breathe. Sainte-Justine is in fact depriving herself of information allowing her to adjust the shot and maximize the chances of a subsequent extubation, argued her lawyer M.e Patrick Martin-Ménard, in court.
“I would like that after the extubation, everything should be done to maximize my son’s survival. I don’t want us to just extubate him and, if that doesn’t work, give him end-of-life care,” she explains calmly over the phone.
“I don’t want the care my son might need to be limited. Watching a child who can’t manage his secretions, who is suffocating, if you don’t intubate him, it’s not a pretty sight. It’s purely a crime, ”she drops.
144 days in hospital
Yolanda counts the days since her son was hospitalized (she is now at 144) and she goes to his bedside daily. Before the near-drowning, her son called her “mommy-darling-doudou-amour”. She answered him by nicknaming him “darling”.
“They say he’s going to be very damaged, that he’s going to have a lot of handicaps. But we, as parents, are ready to welcome him with these disabilities. We will always cherish our child, we will always love him. He is our son,” says the mother.
In court, the medical staff of the CHU Sainte-Justine argued that reintubation (if extubation fails) would lead to risks of pneumonia, inflammation of the trachea, infectious complications and muscle deconditioning.
Judge Bernard Jolin therefore ruled on Tuesday in favor of extubation for “the best interest of the child”.
” [L’] objective [des parents] is to maintain [l’enfant] intubated as long as possible to allow the accomplishment of a miracle, ”wrote the judge in his decision.
It is that Yolanda and her husband, Protestants, believe in miracles and in the intervention of God. The child’s father “feels that [son fils] will be the first case to experience a full recovery and that he can return to his basic state,” reads a document filed in evidence by the defense.
Yolanda indeed speaks of her faith as a “compass”. “In due time, God will act. In due time, he will do his work in my son’s life. I firmly believe in it,” she says, although she was not asked about her religion.
The family has until Monday to appeal their case. The CHU Sainte-Justine has confirmed that it will not extubate the child until this deadline has passed.
* Fictitious name to protect the identity of the child