HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

It is very hard to believe that this amazing child entered our lives one year ago today. Although it has been an emotional roller coaster ride for our family, he has endured more than all of us put together. Three major surgeries, four hospital stays, hundreds of doctor visits, hours of therapy and yet every day he smiles and laughs like nothing has happened.

His strength, courage and determination should be an example to be followed by us all. May God bless him with many years of health and happiness.

Gabriel, Demi & Mom make Crain's New York Business

This Article on Children's Hospitals came out in August (Yes it took me a while to get it scanned and updated) and it featured the Kostaridis Family (minus Dad) and Dr. Stolar, who performed Gabriel's hernia repair.

Update

I know its been a while since I have updated and to be honest alot has been going on...Gabriel is going better and we had a pretty good August and September. His major issues seem to be feeding, and he continues to get his milk through the G-tube. He isn't talking much by bottle but the good thing is that he doesn't seem to have an oral aversion. He sucks on his pacifier and puts stuff in his mouth. Our major focus is on him gaining weight with the hope that it will make him stronger. He is almost 15lbs and has started eating cereal. They are small steps but they are small steps foward to which we are thankful.

He did give us some scares during these past two months and he even got a slight pneumonia a couple of weeks ago, but thankfully he did not have to be hospitalized and hopefully that is past him. The funny thing is that Dad and Big Sister Demi have had as many trips to the Emergency room/Doctors' Office than Gabriel. We both got mosquito bites that got infected and all swollen. I guess when it rains it pours.

I have some pics for everyone to see.

Gabriel Home and Doing Well

Gabriel has been home since July 16th and he is doing very well. It appears that the surgery has healed well and he is more comfortable now. The Reflux has all but disappeared and he is taking the bottle again. Today he does about 15-25 ml by bottle three times a day. Which is great considering the last couple of weeks before his surgery he wasn't taking anything.

Gabriel also had a bunch of follow appointments with his doctors:
Surgeon everything was healing well, he had a Swallow test done and the Fundo is working well. Food goes down and very trace amount come up. Our GI doc put him on a feeding schedule so his goal is to hopefully be taking 48mls, so we can start compressing. He had a Echo-Cardiogram done and his Cardiologist found absolutely nothing wrong with his ticker. He had a neurology appointment and they did not find any neurological problems, although she said he needed to build up his strength and suggested we get him OT (Occupational Therapy). He is already getting PT (Physical Therapy) and Speech and Swallow Therapy.

Overall he looks great and we hope he continues this forward progress.

Gabriel Athan had his surgery Wednesday morning at 11:00am at Columbia Presbyterian Children's Hospital. He had a G-tube inserted and they performed a Nissen Fundoplacation on him. Hopefully the Nissen will reduce the amount of Reflux coming up and give him some relief.

Gabriel is scheduled to be released tomorrow afternoon.

Surgery Scheduled for Tomorrow

Gabriel is set to go in for surgery tomorrow, Wednesday July 9th at 1:00pm. Please keep him in your prayers and we will update with good results.

G-tube and Fundo Surgery

Gabriel had an appointment with his surgeon, Dr. Stolar yesterday as a followup to the GI appointment we had last week and we have all come to the conclusion that it will be in his best interest to have a G-Tube inserted. While he is in there Dr. Stolar believes that a Fundoplaction will be to Gabriel's benefit as well. These past two weeks his reflux has gotten worse, he is very irritable and he is practically not taking the bottle at all anymore and his feed compression has slowed down. The NG-tube hasn't been that bad to this point, but he is now getting to the age where his hands constantly are grasping for it. We put gloves on his hands but that isn't fair for him either and it decreases his motor skills.
So we are planning on going in for surgery on July 14. Otherwise he is going pretty good.