2/10 Update: Haylie spiked a temp of 104.9 overnight. After running some tests, they found a collection of pus/infection on her lung. She was moved to the PICU to place a chest tube to drain it. This will stay in until they are sure the infection pocket is cleared. They also found she had a lot of mucous in her lungs, so much her lung was completely blocked. They washed and suctioned out what they could. She will stay on the breathing machine until the mucous clears up enough to safely take her off. With all of that, she needs a central line to have good access for IV meds. Hopefully, this is the peak and we only see improvements from here. Haylie will probably be in the hospital another 2 weeks at least without any more complications.  

2/8 Haylie is 2 years old. Last week (1/29) she came down with the same bad cold that seemed to be going through the other kids - and adults - of the family. Naturally, it hit her a little harder than the older kids. She was taken to Urgent Care and given a 5 day course of antibiotics because the doc said "she could be coming down with pneumonia" and she had a potential exposure to Pertussis (whooping cough). Luckily, a few days later, her Whooping Cough was negative - but Haylie was not any better or worse. Wednesday she took a turn spiking a fever, was just laying around and extremely irritable. By Thursday, she had no improvement - Fever, extreme lethargy (but still alert), shaky and breathing quickly. Her parents took her to the ER.

Here, they found her Xray showed pneumonia and her vital signs flagged for Sepsis. She got fluids, antibiotics, lab work and was sent to Toledo Children's Hospital. Her lab work was concerning. They found that she was positive for Human Metapneumovirus. Then her blood cultures showed Streptococcal Pneumoniae. They believe she originally came down with the virus we all probably had. Because she was fighting it, the Strep bacteria was able to settle into her lungs, causing pneumonia. Her little body couldn't fight it all, and it made its way to her bloodstream causing systemic inflammation - which is Sepsis. Thankfully her parents took her in when they did. Haylie would've continued to decline and could've become very critical, very quickly if they waited any longer. WE ARE GRATEFUL. She is not out of the woods yet. Her dehydration and inflammatory markers are finally starting to improve today (2/8), but are still not back to normal.

With the bacteria being in Haylie's blood, she needs at least 5 days of IV antibiotics after her blood cultures are clean (and we are still waiting for sensitivity results to come back). They are looking at another week in the hospital as a BEST CASE SCENARIO. That's if everything goes perfectly for the next few days.

All this to say - her parents need help. They mostly live paycheck-to-paycheck. Megan, Haylie's mom, is a nail tech. She is "self-employed" - if she doesn't work, she doesn't get paid. It is AWEFUL seeing your child miserable in the hospital. And it is a 10-fold when you have to decide between staying with your child and going to work to pay the bills. She has already taken the last week off work because Haylie was sick. This is without including gas expenses for the 40 minute drive and purchasing food to eat. Megan is also 7 months Pregnant with 2 older boys at home.

I can't take away the stress of having a sick child. I can't take away the knowledge that they could've lost their daughter had they not taken her to the ER that day. I can try to help ease the financial burden of staying a week, or more, in the hospital. Please help me to help them, even just a little bit.

If you are not able to help monetarily, I completely understand. You can still help substantially by sending your prayers. We thank you for that.

If you would like to provide a gift card for meals, you can do so here: https://mealtrain.com/rlzw42

If you would like your ENTIRE donation to go to the family without 4% transaction fees being, you can Venmo me @Tamlyn-Humphreys (last four of the phone number is 3093).

THANK YOU.