On May 1st 2014, Kieran a healthy 12 year old boy, suddenly went into cardiac arrest at school in Regina for no medical reason that they can find. Fortunately, the quick thinking school staff  performed CPR and ultimately saved Kieran’s life.  Kieran was airlifted by plane to a Saskatoon Pediatric Intensive Care Unit where he spent almost a month.  He then was transported back home to a Regina hospital for one week before his medical condition changed again requiring a second airlift by plane back to PICU in Saskatoon for another week.  Since that time, he has been back home in Regina.  After everything that has been thrown at him, he continues to beat the odds!! Kieran was hypoxic for 14 minutes, in 2 separate comas, suffered a collapsed lung, underwent spinal taps, a probe in his brain to monitor the cerebral edema (brain swelling) and he experienced a brain hemorrhage. As a result, he now suffers from a severe anoxic brain injury.  Kieran currently cannot sit by himself, stand, walk, talk, and fed by a g-tube.  He now has spastic type movements and recently had to be medicated for that as it was affecting his sleep and therapies.  He also suffers from seizures.  There are so many muscles we take for granted that Kieran now has to relearn how to control, such as those in his throat, mouth, index finger to point.

Kieran played hockey since he was 6 years old thanks to Layne, who convinced Kelly to let him play. He was on the Peewee 2A Bisons for the 2013/2014 Season with Hockey Regina.  He played on the school’s volleyball team, was a very good soccer player, a good swimmer, and was registered to start touch football this year. But, hockey was his favorite activity! At the age of 12, he already was thinking about his future and dreamed of working as a swim instructor/life guard as well as expressed an interest in refereeing hockey games as a teenage and becoming either a dentist or engineer when he grows up.

Kieran is very well known for his happy smile, as he was always smiling.  Even after everything he has been through this year, when you go to the rehabilitation facility to visit Kieran, you usually can still see one of his smiles!!  Kieran is a laid back, easy going, mischievous kid, with a neat sense of humor.  He is hard working, persistent and highly motivated!  He always tries his best in everything he does.  Kelly, Layne and his siblings believe that it’s those qualities and his determination that will get him through this. 

Kieran has started to communicate.  His communication started with just rolling his eyes up to answer “yes” to a question.  With being able to do that he was able to give Kelly the 4 digit code to unlock his IPod.  He now is able to do thumbs up for “yes”, shake his head for “no” and has a hand signal for when he is tired.  He has also recently started speech therapy; however, the likelihood that he will regain his full speech abilities is small.  Kieran lost 17 pounds and now has gained 8 of those back!

Kieran was finally stable enough to be admitted as an inpatient at a rehabilitation facility in the middle of July.  Kieran has not been able to return home since this tragedy happened May 1st and, despite all the time they have spent with him in the hospital and now the rehabilitation facility, his parents Kelly and Layne and his three siblings Jacey, Kennedy and Aidan miss him terribly.

The Vermeulen-Jackson family needs financial help.  There are many things not fully covered, or not covered at all by Saskatchewan Health that they now require for him and their home.  For example; they require residential elevator, transportation methods, wheel chair accessible ramps, ceiling tracks, wheel chair lifts, and other modifications to their home.  While there is very little we can do to help Kieran’s family with the tragedy they have suffered, we hope to raise funds as a community to offer some of the costs associated with supporting Kieran and preparing his home so that it will be ready for him when he is able to return.

PLEASE help this family get Kieran home and give them a little light in the dark tunnel they are in.

Please see the below article written in regards to Kieran from the Metro News.

http://metronews.ca/news/regina/1046778/reginans-rally-behind-boy-with-unknown-severe-ailment/