Edmond Boy Sickened By H1N1 On Road to Recovery

By Kirsten McIntyre, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- After weeks of battling the H1N1 virus, a 10-year-old Edmond boy is finally on the road to recovery.

Tony Estlinbaum has been at OU Children's Hospital ICU for more than three weeks, and at times, it looked like he wouldn't make it. At one point, Tony had to be placed on life support.

"There was a conversation with the doctors talking to Tony saying, 'come on, pull through this, come on Tony,'" said Hugh Estlinbaum, Tony's father.

Finally, Tony's condition is improving, and he's been upgraded from critical to serious.

"He's starting to wake up a little bit. He's talking to us. He's telling us some jokes here and there, knock knock jokes," Hugh said.

With his family constantly by his side, he's even been able to make a special request for his favorite drink.

"The first thing he wanted to drink when he woke up after three weeks was sweet tea, so we had a little bit of sweet tea," Hugh said.

Before coming down with the H1N1 flu, Tony was extremely active even running his own lawn mowing business. He didn't have any underlying health problems, which is why this life or death situation has been so shocking for his family.

"He's always been very athletic, hard to keep him in the house very often. He wants to go out and ride his bicycle, play football, ride around on his four-wheeler and stay active," Hugh said.

Doctors said they think Tony will be in the hospital for another three weeks, and his brother and sister are among those who can't wait for their big brother to come home.

"We've had a lot of close calls. We've spent a lot time on our knees. God's really come through for us," Hugh said.

Recently, emergency rooms have reported seeing nearly double the number of patient that doctors normally see with the majority of those extra patients complaining of flu-like symptoms.

Two other young girls are also in the ICU at Children's in critical condition with the flu. Ten-year-old Leteasha Howard is one of them. She's been in the hospital for more than a month and was also on life support. Doctors didn't expect her to survive, but she's still fighting to stay alive.

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