Philotic Web

So, I wouldn't ordinarily do this, and I hope you guys don't mind, but my heart is seriously hurting for my cousin and her baby. When my cousin was six months pregnant, she found out her baby had hydrocephalus. She also has two holes in her heart. She had to have several surgeries for the hydrocephalus as a newborn. They were hoping she would be okay without surgery on her heart for awhile longer, but that's not going to happen, and at seven months old Zoey needs open heart surgery at Mayo.

My cousin is a great, great mommy. She does not have much in the way of financial resources. She's a waitress (a damn good one), but that didn't really let her set up much of a nest egg. With all the doctor appointments and surgeries, she's not able to work nearly as much as she needs to in order to make ends meet.

I remember when Atty was born and we were poor as anything. Some of you have been there, too. Poverty eats into every single part of your life, limits your choices, takes up energy worrying about lights and food and gas and bills and survival, so focusing on anything else is so difficult. And I keep thinking, what if the other thing that you have to be focusing on, that you SHOULD be able to just focus on is taking care of and spending time with and helping your baby, who needs such frequent and intense medical care?

So, anyhow, I'm posting everywhere I can: http://www.gofundme.com/3b2jrb4z7q

If you can donate, that's wonderful. Prayers and good wishes are also helpful. And feel free to share the link with anyone you think might be moved to help out.

Thanks so much.

Done and done, with all my best wishes heading towards that lovely little girl. Poverty sucks. Worrying about caring for your loved ones sucks even more. I'll try to post this on Facebook during daylight hours, when I think it will get more views from my admittedly small group of friends.

Thank you so much! I cannot tell you how I appreciate it.

I did a thing.

Also, hi.

Josh!



Twas my pleasure, Kirsten. I'm hoping they make it to their goal.

Thank you so much, Josh!

Also, HI! Stick around!

Well, update and request for more prayers.

The heart surgery went really well. She celebrated her first birthday this last December and is such a little fighter.

Unfortunately, the shunts from the hydrocephalus now appear to be having problems. She was taken to the hospital a few days ago because her tummy was filling up with fluid. They believed it was a stomach infection causing the shunt to back up somehow, so they have to do two surgeries, one to make the shunt external for awhile until the stomach infection clears and then another to replace the whole shunt. Not even fifteen months old and she'll have had a total of five brain surgeries, counting those as separate surgeries. They did the first one yesterday, and it seemed to go well. However, my cousin just found out the doctors think that she now has an infection in her brain that stemmed from the one in her stomach. They're going to be in the hospital quite awhile and I know this is terribly scary for her. Any prayers or good thoughts anyone has are very welcomed.