BY SCOTT HADDOW
Gabriel Abotossaway looks up at his mother and father from a hospital bed and a faint smile comes across his face.
It’s what Max and Beverly Abotossaway will hold on to while they help their son fight for his life, and the reason the family went ahead with an innovative surgical procedure that could allow him to breathe on his own.
In May, Abotossaway, 20, was involved in a car collision and suffered severe injuries, including extensive damage to his spinal cord. Excessive amounts of blood entered his spinal cord and caused swelling and compression. Most of the damage was to his his C4 and C5 vertebrae. Since the incident, Abotossaway has been on a ventilator at Sudbury Regional Hospital.
In July, a team of medical professionals – made up of local doctors and an American physician providing guidance - implanted a NeuRx Diaphragm Pacing System in Abotossaway that electronically stimulates his diaphragm to work.
Max and Beverly came up with $35,000 to cover the cost of the device because OHIP doesn’t cover it, and an American surgeon familiar with the system, Dr. Raymond Onders from Cleveland, Ohio, came up to Sudbury for the cost of his flight and hotel room to assist Dr. Fabio Luison and Dr. John Snider.
“There was no choice. We had to get this system and operation done to save our son’s life,” Beverly said. “We had no guarantee it would work, but we had to try it no matter the cost. All we heard was bad news from day one and we were told the worst case scenario over and over again. They said Gabe wouldn’t make it back to Sudbury. They said Gabe wouldn’t make it to Toronto. Gabe is still here. If Gabe didn’t want to be here, he would have been gone already. It shows his will to live.”
Back in May, Abotossaway was driving south on Highway 69 when he was involved in a head on collision with a pick up truck near the Pickerel River. There has been no official cause as to why Abotossaway’s vehicle suddenly swerved and caused the collision. Abotossaway’s parents have no clue what happened.
“Gabe doesn’t remember anything from a week before or after the collision,” said Beverly. “It was on a straight stretch at 3:30 p.m. on a clear day. Witnesses said his car just veered all of a sudden. It could have been a rough patch on the road or a mechanical problem. No cause has been determined.
The car crash was described as “horrific” to Max by firefighters who responded to the scene. It took emergency response personnel three hours to cut Abotossaway free from the twisted metal wreckage.
On top of the severe spinal cord injury, Abotossaway sustained broken ribs, a collapsed lung, lacerations to his liver and bleeding inside his stomach. He had two broken legs – both femurs and tibulas, a broken jaw had his spleen removed and sustained other small cuts and bruises.
Several weeks after the crash, Sudbury doctors wondered why Abotossaway was taking a long time to get off the ventilator. They quickly discovered that the phrenic nerve wasn’t working and the right side of his diaphragm wouldn’t function.
Sudbury doctors knew it was going to take something extraordinary to help Abotossaway. Dr. Stephane Sauvé and Dr. Mary-Catherine Kerr began a determined search to find a treatment. Their search led them to Dr. Onders, setting the wheels in motion for Abotossaway to receive the ground-breaking surgical procedure to save his life in July.
The system provides direct electrical impulses to the diaphragm to allow it to contract. Small electrodes were implanted in his diaphragm (about a millimetre in diameter) and hooked up to a small adaptor.
The system allows Abotossaway’s diaphragm to become stronger.
It has been an intense step forward for Abotossaway as he must adapt to the small electric shocks inside his body. Back in July, Abotossaway was able to endure one to five minutes of the system being on at the low setting. By August, he was able to withstand six hours on full power. (Abotossaway goes in cycles, using the pacing system followed by the ventilator.)
“The hope is that the system will get him off the ventilator and back in his home instead of the ICU,” Dr. Luison said. “The potential is there. As for a timeline, it’s all individual. It would help him become more vocal and he would be able to get a device on the trachea to help him talk, but he can’t because he’s on a ventilator. It’s a big bonus to be able to communicate and talk again. It makes a huge difference.”
The surgery was called “ground-breaking” by hospital officials because it marked the first time in Canada that it has been performed outside of British Columbia. Patients requiring this treatment in the past have had to travel to British Columbia or the U.S.
“We’re hoping this will become the standard of care for these patients,” Luison said. “There is a profound cost saving having a patient at home instead of in the hospital. It makes an impact.”
Max and Beverly will continue to hold onto hope and do anything they can to help their son. His other injuries have healed. It is unlikely he will ever walk again or have use of his arms. Max and Beverly know this isn’t the end of their son - he has too much to give still. A graduate of Manitoulin Secondary School, Abotossaway did peer mentoring and was the chief of the Three Fires Confederacy Student Council. He was a proud grass dancer and performed at pow-wows and other events. He was an outspoken ambassador for his culture and heritage and always found time for charity causes. He was an avid athlete and loved to kayak, rock climb and compete in archery - he was sixth best at the 2010 Ontario Summer Games.
“It’s the ultimate test of his character,” Max said. “We’ll tell him something and he’ll smile and it’s nice to see. Our lives have stopped. We’re positive. We believe he will be ventilator free.”
