Eli's flight to fight for his life
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On February 25, 2018, our morning started in a way we never would have expected. Eli hadn't been feeling well the night before, however, he slept through the night and when we woke up in the morning we brought him to lay in bed with us for a bit. That's when what we thought would be a typical morning took a turn for the worse.
Kayla, lying next to Eli, noticed his eyes blinking continually and his body appeared to be twitching in sync with his blinking. She brought this to my attention and as I lifted Eli off the bed and held him in my arms I noticed his limbs had locked in place. He was unresponsive to any touch or sound and as I made attempts to move his arms and legs they would quickly move back to where they were before. I remember telling Kayla I believed he was having a seizure and we called 911 to get paramedics at our home in St. Robert, MO. Just before they arrived Eli seemed to have come out of his seizure, but remained in a very lethargic state. We made the decision to have the paramedics transport him to PCRMC, since we had recently gotten out of the military and could no longer receive regular medical care on post. Kayla rode in the ambulance with Eli and I followed closely behind. While on the phone with my mom about everything going on I noticed the ambulance turn on its emergency lights and make a u-turn, heading towards a closer Emergency Room on Ft. Leonard Wood. I got on the phone with Kayla and discovered Eli had gone into another seizure, which lasted for about the next 5 minutes until we arrived at the hospital. Doctors worked quickly to assess Eli's condition and began running lab tests to figure out what they needed to do. Thankfully, the ER doctor on duty that day was also a pediatrician. As we sat watching Eli in the urgent care room inside the ER we found out his labs showed low sodium levels and the doctors began doing what they could to correct the issue, although at this point we didn't know what was causing his body chemistry to be out of line. The doctor consulted with St. Louis Children's Hospital and before long we were informed they would be sending a helicopter to fly him to St. Louis to begin further testing.
The next few days in St. Louis we spent a lot of time waiting on results hoping for an answer as to why Eli had his seizures. Thankfully, after his first two we did not experience them anymore. After many tests being run, we came to find out that Eli had contracted RSV at some point and the virus had resulted in his sodium level dropping, which they believed could have been cause for the seizures. Since then Eli has been a healthy boy and continues to develop just as he should.
Following our stay in St. Louis we were expecting some medical bills, however, what we didn't expect was a bill for Eli's flight not being covered. Initially we received a bill for $72,000 for a one-way flight from Ft. Leonard Wood to St. Louis. (This was before our insurance was billed) Once we got everything taken care of with our insurance, we thought for sure things would be much better, and for the most part they were since we weren't billed the full amount anymore. After our insurance was billed, we received a letter from our insurance stating they were only going to cover a certain portion of the flight because they did not see that it was medically necessary for Eli to be flown to St. Louis Children's Hospital and instead he could have been flown to a closer children's hospital in Springfield, MO. After receiving this we began the appeal process and explained to the insurance company that at no time were we asked where we wanted Eli to be flown. As parent's dealing with their 2 month old child having seizures, we let the doctor's make the decisions they thought would be best in order to make sure our son was going to be okay and come out a healthy baby boy. Sadly, the fact that we had no say in where Eli was flown had no affect on how much the insurance company chose to cover. We were even fortunate enough to have the company billing us for the flight make multiple attempts to have insurance pay more of the bill, but they have stated they don't believe there will be any change. The remaining amount we owe is what we are reaching out to family and friends, and maybe even people we don't know, for a little help in paying for Eli's flight. We hope that you will prayerfully consider what your contribution would be, and if you are unable to help out financially, we ask that you share this so that it might reach someone else. We have spent a lot of time thinking and praying through all of this and will continue to do so. If the contributions happen to exceed what we are asking, anything extra will be paid forward and we will donate any surplus contributions to another person in need of help with medical expenses. Thank you in advance to everyone that becomes a part of this story with us. God bless.
Kayla, lying next to Eli, noticed his eyes blinking continually and his body appeared to be twitching in sync with his blinking. She brought this to my attention and as I lifted Eli off the bed and held him in my arms I noticed his limbs had locked in place. He was unresponsive to any touch or sound and as I made attempts to move his arms and legs they would quickly move back to where they were before. I remember telling Kayla I believed he was having a seizure and we called 911 to get paramedics at our home in St. Robert, MO. Just before they arrived Eli seemed to have come out of his seizure, but remained in a very lethargic state. We made the decision to have the paramedics transport him to PCRMC, since we had recently gotten out of the military and could no longer receive regular medical care on post. Kayla rode in the ambulance with Eli and I followed closely behind. While on the phone with my mom about everything going on I noticed the ambulance turn on its emergency lights and make a u-turn, heading towards a closer Emergency Room on Ft. Leonard Wood. I got on the phone with Kayla and discovered Eli had gone into another seizure, which lasted for about the next 5 minutes until we arrived at the hospital. Doctors worked quickly to assess Eli's condition and began running lab tests to figure out what they needed to do. Thankfully, the ER doctor on duty that day was also a pediatrician. As we sat watching Eli in the urgent care room inside the ER we found out his labs showed low sodium levels and the doctors began doing what they could to correct the issue, although at this point we didn't know what was causing his body chemistry to be out of line. The doctor consulted with St. Louis Children's Hospital and before long we were informed they would be sending a helicopter to fly him to St. Louis to begin further testing.
The next few days in St. Louis we spent a lot of time waiting on results hoping for an answer as to why Eli had his seizures. Thankfully, after his first two we did not experience them anymore. After many tests being run, we came to find out that Eli had contracted RSV at some point and the virus had resulted in his sodium level dropping, which they believed could have been cause for the seizures. Since then Eli has been a healthy boy and continues to develop just as he should.
Following our stay in St. Louis we were expecting some medical bills, however, what we didn't expect was a bill for Eli's flight not being covered. Initially we received a bill for $72,000 for a one-way flight from Ft. Leonard Wood to St. Louis. (This was before our insurance was billed) Once we got everything taken care of with our insurance, we thought for sure things would be much better, and for the most part they were since we weren't billed the full amount anymore. After our insurance was billed, we received a letter from our insurance stating they were only going to cover a certain portion of the flight because they did not see that it was medically necessary for Eli to be flown to St. Louis Children's Hospital and instead he could have been flown to a closer children's hospital in Springfield, MO. After receiving this we began the appeal process and explained to the insurance company that at no time were we asked where we wanted Eli to be flown. As parent's dealing with their 2 month old child having seizures, we let the doctor's make the decisions they thought would be best in order to make sure our son was going to be okay and come out a healthy baby boy. Sadly, the fact that we had no say in where Eli was flown had no affect on how much the insurance company chose to cover. We were even fortunate enough to have the company billing us for the flight make multiple attempts to have insurance pay more of the bill, but they have stated they don't believe there will be any change. The remaining amount we owe is what we are reaching out to family and friends, and maybe even people we don't know, for a little help in paying for Eli's flight. We hope that you will prayerfully consider what your contribution would be, and if you are unable to help out financially, we ask that you share this so that it might reach someone else. We have spent a lot of time thinking and praying through all of this and will continue to do so. If the contributions happen to exceed what we are asking, anything extra will be paid forward and we will donate any surplus contributions to another person in need of help with medical expenses. Thank you in advance to everyone that becomes a part of this story with us. God bless.
Organizer
Jeremy Rutledge
Organizer
Waynesville, MO
