Love for Luca
Distress Beyond Measure.
On behalf of the Wade Family, Elle Gulotta and Rev. John Halas would like to ask for your support.
Here is their story:
We are the Wade Family. Chris and Leah, the proud parents of two boys ages 9 and 6, eagerly welcomed our beautiful daughter, Luca into our family 16 months ago unaware at the time, she would be diagnosed with a rare disease called Wolf Hirschhorn Syndrome. This genetic condition affects many parts of the body that include significant characteristic facial appearance disorders, delayed growth and development, intellectual disability, heart defects and seizures. The statistics say about 1/3 of Wolf Hirschhorn children will not live to age 2.
Most families who are faced with rare newborn diseases become part of a pediatric palliative care program because the conditions are so rare and life-threatening that it requires both parents to dedicate their time and resources to the 24/7 care of their child, and that's been our experience too.
Chris' employment ended when his employer was unable to accommodate his schedule to meet the needs of caring for Luca during the months right after her birth. Chris has diligently sought out steady employment but to date, he has had no offers and his unemployment expired in March of this year and we were forced out of our home in June. He's managed to pick up a few short-term contract jobs but not enough for us to cover our basic needs.
Throughout this past year Luca has had a surgery for a G-tube placement, as she is unable to take food by mouth. She also became extremely ill this past July when she had a prolonged seizure brought on by a high fever due to pneumonia. She was on life support, had heart failure and we spent 9 days in ICU. This put significant strain on our family. Needless to say, our inability to support our family and tending to all the needs for Luca's rare disease, has in a very short time, unraveled our life in such dramatic ways that we now find ourselves precariously standing on the precipice of homelessness with no where to go or family to lean into for support.
It’s been through the help of a few friends in the last year that has kept our head above water but the time has come for us to ask for financial support from our larger community with the hope it will provide us the opportunity to find suitable housing, purchase much needed medicine and household supplies and give us some precious time to restore our family and rebuild our lives to become self-supporting again.
We’ve been hesitant to ask for financial help because it feels so emotionally devastating to share how we’ve gone from a healthy family with stable income to a family struggling to provide the basic needs and housing for our children and our daughter’s special medicines, vitamins and supplements.
We’d be deeply grateful for your love and generosity.
We need to move in the next 3 weeks and your financial support will help us find a new place to live, even if temporary and help pay for the necessarily supplies for our family's care.
Here is Luca's facebook page if you're interested in learning more about her journey.
https://www.facebook.com/loveforlucawade/
With Much Love and Gratitude,
The Wade Family