Mason, an affectionate 5 1/2 year old girl, lives with her Mom Emily, and her Grandfather "Pop". Mason started having some unusual behavioral issues around May 2020 when she was nearly 4 1/2 years of age, and soon after some significant developmental regression. By the end of August when Mason and her family were being evacuated from the fires in Santa Cruz, Mason was having nearly constant rage tantrums, nightly sleep disruptions, and had reverted back to being in diapers. She had lost almost all of her language skills, seeming selectively mute, and the inability to perform simple daily functions such as dressing herself. In desperation, Emily took Mason to her pediatrician in search of help, and started on a medical journey to get answers. Mason had several EEG's, an MRI, bloodwork, and even a full genetics work up done by Stanford, but everything came back normal and negative. Emily met with several pediatric specialists, and a possible explanation offered by one of them at the UC Davis Mind institute that seemed to fit most closely to Masons condition was that of severe and prolonged stress trauma (PTSD) from emotional events in her life. This included the loss of her sweet 15 year old dog Venus, who passed away the day after returning home from being evacuated by the CZU-complex fires in August. Mason had improved behaviorally for a few months around the holidays, and into the new year which seemed to fit with the newest medical opinion. Mason started Speech and Occupational therapy to help regain the skills that she had lost, but in February, the aggressive behavioral issues slowly started back up again. Mason became so dysregulated that by March, she was unable to participate in her prescribed therapies. At the end of March 2021 Mason experienced a life threatening neurological event that caused her to go hypothermic and develop hypoxia in her brain. She was transferred to Stanford and was on life support for 5 days, and in PICU for 10 days. Many tests and procedures were done including a brain biopsy to rule out top possible diagnoses at that time of which brain cancer was one of them. After 3 weeks at Stanford, and the right medication, Mason had miraculously improved to surpass the doctors expectations of her recovery, and was able to talk, walk, and feed herself again. She was discharged with rigorous outpatient therapies, and many still unanswered questions or even a diagnosis. She has suffered several seizures since discharge, and is now being treated as epileptic. This is secondary to whatever the underlining issue is that started presenting itself almost one year earlier. As a single Mom, Emily has taken a long term unpaid leave of absence from work to help facilitate Mason's recovery, and is still on a quest to find a diagnosis for her daughter. Many of the therapies, which include plans to train Charlie their new Lab to be a medical assist companion dog are not covered by insurance, and are on going out of pocket expenses. Current medical bills have exceeded $1.3 MILLION+
Any contribution in finding Mason a miracle would be profoundly appreciated and mean the world to our family. Thank you for your continued support during this challenging time.