Why we describe him as a miracle
Here is a brief summary of events in the early days of Luke's life :-
23/6/98 Luke born at home
24/6/98 Driven into local hospital critically ill. Established bowel had perforated and his system was now poisoned. Kept alive and transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Emergency operation in evening with very little chance of survival.
25/6/98 Intensive care. Luke has total support for life (breathing ventilator, IV drugs,etc)
26/6/98 Small signs of improvement.
3/7/98 Plans are afoot to move Luke out of Intensive Care because of his progress.
5/7/98 Luke to remain in Intensive Care because of infection.
12/7/98 Luke's condition has deteriorated so much that surgeon is called in from home at 11.45 pm to see what can be done.
13/7/98 Luke has second operation. He is so sick that his chances of surviving a second operation in his condition are minimal, but it is his only hope. He survives the ordeal but the operation found nothing amiss inside of Luke. We are told to prepare for the worst... surgeon thinks Luke has hours to live.
14/7/98 Luke survives and gradually starts to get better day by day. There is no medical explanation for this remarkable turnaround. There followed many more days in intensive care but Luke fought on until he was able to be moved to a normal ward.
3/8/98 Luke leaves Intensive Care ! and is discharged to a respiratory ward (best place for him since he is well enough for a normal ward and is suspected as having Cystic Fibrosis)
20/8/98 Luke discharged. We take him home. Fantastic ! These are just the key moments that put the events into a time frame but we have a blow by blow daily account of things and our feelings as they unfold. Everybody we know got completely gripped by the events in Luke's life so far. Even people we don't know asked our family and friends about Lukes well being. Most people that know about Luke find his experience extraordinary and can't understand how he is alive. We think its an amazing true human interest story of triumph against all the odds.