Edmond 10-Year-Old Battling H1N1 Released from Hospital

After more than a month battling the H1N1 virus, including weeks in intensive care an Edmond 10-year-old is finally getting to go home.

Monday, October 26th 2009, 4:57 pm

By: News 9


By Dave Jordan, NEWS 9

EDMOND, Oklahoma -- After more than a month battling the H1N1 virus, including weeks in intensive care an Edmond 10-year-old is finally getting to go home.

Tony Estlinbaum was released from the hospital Monday afternoon. It's a release that couldn't come soon enough for Tony and the rest of the Estlinbaum family. The past few weeks have been difficult ones, not knowing whether Tony would recover from the deadly H1N1 flu.

Tony has already made plans for his first day back home.

"Hopefully seeing my friends because I haven't seen them in a while," Tony said.

That's because the youth league football player was sidelined with the H1N1 flu virus for the past five weeks. At one point, Tony was in intensive care.

"I was going through it, I was glad I was asleep and not awake and seeing them poking me and putting stuff in me and stuff like that," Tony said.

But Tony's father witnessed it all and news reports of the growing pandemic only added to his anxiety.

"Every time you turn around you're seeing the death toll rise, you're seeing what big impact this is hitting our nation and it's scary," Hugh Estlinbaum, Tony's father, said.

And to make matters worse, two of his children were affected.

"It put the fear of God into us, and we were thinking, I mean, what do you think when you have one kid in the ICU another kid that may be going that way?" Hugh said.

His daughter recovered in a just a few days and was never hospitalized. And doctors say Tony has made a full recovery.

Tony's father says he's grateful to his family and friends for all the support as both of his children battled the virus and he's grateful to God that both of them pulled through.

The Estlinbaums have racked up substantial medical bills. If you'd like to help, just go to any branch of the Citizens Bank of Edmond and you can donate to the Tony Estlinbaum fund.

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