Ella’s Medical expenses

On May 20th Ella ( age 3 1/2) and her family were camping up north. In a brief moment her life changed forever. Tripping over a stick Ella fell backwards into a camp fire burning her hands, arms and legs. She was helicoptered to the Madison burn unit where she was sedated and bandaged with 2nd and 3rd degree burns. In the next couple of days she was taken in and out of multiple surgeries for skin grafts and bandage changes. Working with physical and occupational therapists she is learning how to be Ella again. She has a long summer of recovery ahead of her and I would like to help raise some funds to help her parents with her medical bills.

Update on Ella

Her wounds are healing nicely. We are at the itchy stage where pain meds don't really help much. She is up and walking around although it is more of a waddle at this point. Physical therapy will be needed to ensure she regains full range of motion in both hands and legs. We will be getting her fitted with custom compression garments that she will need to wear 23 hours a day for the next year. These will help to minimize the scaring and blend in her grafted sites along the back of her legs. Our next big hurdle is getting her to eat and take medicine orally. Once that happens we can remove her feeding tube and go home! Thank you all for your continued support in this, these last few weeks have been rough but we are making it through one day at a time.

Ella Update:

We did get discharged on Monday, however after her bandage change this morning they are re-admitting her back into the burn unit where we have been the last 2+ weeks. We are fighting a bacterial growth that requires daily bandage changes with sedation for the next few days. We are also struggling with getting her to take her medicine orally, so staying a few more days at the hospital will allow us to better manage her pain and intense itchiness. It was really tough to hear that we once again can not take her home. Back to Jon and I rotating shifts at the hospital until she can come home again...one day at a time. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Ella Update #4:

We are getting a day off from bandage changes, next one is scheduled for tomorrow. We have made progress with taking medication orally and her appetite is slowly returning. We are still fighting the fever that they think is from her body trying to heal her wounds, fevers are common in burn patients. Her pain and itchiness do come in waves but are now under control with oral medication.

We did get her up and walking to the play room today, something she has refused to do since being readmitted so I feel we are making progress. Keeping her active and moving around is extremely important to make sure she doesn't lose her range of motion as all her burns are over joints.

Her hands are still of some concern and may still require additional surgeries. There are a few deep areas that may benefit from graft placement. Additionally, her hands are starting to heal slightly contracted and if this affects her hand dexterity additional surgeries may be beneficial. We continue to evaluate wound healing with each bandage change with doctors actively adjusting her care with each evaluation.

Thank you for all of the prayers and continued support. We will make it through this, one day at a a time.