Open letter – Johany Gauthier, proud mother of Jordan

« Imagine being told by doctors: “We cannot guarantee that your baby will survive.” My little Jordan was a fighter right from the beginning, and I know that without research, without your generosity, we would have lost him.

My little one’s entry into the world got off to a very rocky start. Born at only 28 weeks and 3 days, he
had to be resuscitated from the moment he began to breathe, and then was flown by emergency
plane from Val-d’Or to Sherbrooke.

I had barely recovered from giving birth when my little family and I temporarily moved to Estrie so we
could be by Jordan’s side. We were not prepared that at six days old, our tiny baby would be fighting
necrotizing enterocolitis, a serious intestinal disease that mainly affects premature babies.

It all started with a bloated stomach and a refusal to drink. X-rays revealed the extent of the damage:
his large intestine was dead and perforated in two places, causing his stools to spill out. Jordan’s own
body was poisoning him from the inside!

He was immediately rushed into surgery. The top priority was to install drains in the intestinal holes to
curb contamination. It was only during the second operation, a 10-hour surgery, that we would find
out if he had enough healthy intestines left to survive. Jordan had a 1 in 2 chance of surviving.
Fortunately, his small intestine remained intact.

Jordan had his large intestine removed. He was fitted with a ventral bag to collect his stools while he
healed. But since the small intestine was not designed to absorb nutrients, it couldn’t handle my milk.
As a result, Jordan kept getting sick. He had to be intubated four times for episodes of respiratory
distress and experienced a brain hemorrhage – another condition mainly affecting premature babies
– which weakened the mobility on the left side of his body. For 150 days, Jordan put on brave fight.

His victory is thanks to people like you. Every time you support pediatric research, Mrs. XX, you enable researchers to improve their knowledge about the diseases that affect our precious children. This is why the staff can provide the best possible care to their young patients. All the advances (even the smallest ones) that research makes through your generosity represent victories, they represent young lives that are saved.

As I write to you, I’m watching Jordan smile at me, he’s laughing and crawling after his big brother, Mathis.
I can’t even imagine what would have happened without the breakthroughs in science!
Could the disease have been diagnosed in time? Would we have known how to properly clean his
abdominal cavity? Would we have mastered the techniques to reconnect his intestine to his rectum so
that my little one could go to the toilet like everyone else?
It was advances in research that helped us understand that if we slowed down his intestinal transit and
gave him a high-salt diet to better retain nutrients, our little Jordan would have a chance to get back on
track. He held on to this chance with everything he had. Now, he eats all the time!

With your support, science will one day be able to prevent families from going through an ordeal like the one we went through. This is what Professor Jean-François Beaulieu of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke is tackling. That’s why I sincerely hope you will donate today to the Pediatric Research Foundation, which supports research like his.
Thank you on behalf of all the children who fight for their health and the happiness of their families. »

Johany Gauthier, proud mother of Jordan