Our son, Carter is a happy, handsome 21 month old boy. He has a very nurturing big sister, Gracie and a large and loving extended family.

Carter loves exploring and being active. After his first experience at gymnastics on the trampoline, Carter began jumping EVERYWHERE!

His journey at Sick Kids began after a fun family vacation. Carter began showing flu-like symptoms. He had been diagnosed with an ear infection, bronchiolitis and was cutting his eye teeth and molars – so when Carter seemed lethargic we assumed his body was on overload and he needed to rest. After an entire night and half a day of vomiting and lethargy, we brought him to our local Emergency Department. The doctor there agreed with our theory that he was probably just in need of some rest due to his body fighting off infection. But after another entire night of extreme lethargy we brought him back to Emerg. The doctors were very concerned this time. It had been way too long. He hadn’t really woken up or spoken to us in almost 2 full days. They ran blood work and did a CT scan. Our fears were realized when we saw the pediatritician holding his head with worry. He came into our room in Emerg and asked us to sit down. Our hearts sank. The doctor proceeded to tell us that the CT Scan showed irregular results. Carter had a Cavernous Hemangioma on his brain that had had a massive bleed. The malformation had grown from about the size of a blueberry to the size of a lime. They had already made arrangements for us at Sick Kids and the special ORNGE ambulance team was on their way to pick him up to transport Carter there. Upon our arrival at Sick Kids we were greeted by a team of nurses, doctors and surgeons who knew about his case and had looked at the CT scan results. Carter was undergoing emergency brain surgery within an hour of our arrival. He was out of surgery 2 hours later. Neurosurgeon, Dr. Rutka came walking out of the operating room like a hero to us. He told us that the surgery was over and Carter had done very well.

From that moment on, everything started to go uphill.