"Be Amanda Matthews' Angels" xoxo

Somebody should tell us right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. -Pope Paul IV.

Every woman’s life changes when she has a child. Suddenly their lives are no longer about themselves, but her life is now all about her child or children. I am about to tell you all about one mother’s dedication to her children. I am so happy to be able to call this woman one of my best friends. She is a single mother of two girls. The oldest girl is 17 and an aspiring model, she also has a 9 year old young girl. She is a good mother and would do anything for her girls. For the past 3 months she has been to several doctors trying to figure out what is wrong with Amanda (her 17 year old daughter). She was having trouble eating and going to the restroom. She had taken a lot of tests to determine what was going on. It seems like it took forever, but she was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s disease on December 17, 2017. The medical definition of Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestines, especially the colon and ileum, associated with ulcers and fistulae.



On February 2, 2017, Amanda was in so much pain that she said it felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing her in the stomach. Her mother rushed her to Wolfson Children’s Hospital Emergency Room where they
determined after many tests that she needed emergency surgery because part of her intestine (where the small intestine connects to the large intestine) had ruptured. She was in surgery for 3 hours. They took 10 cm of her ileum which is between the large and small intestines, and stitched it back together. They kept her in the hospital and on medication for a little over a week. She was sent home on Friday afternoon February 10, 2017. We all thought she was getting better.



Then on Sunday February 12, 2017 at 6 am she was rushed back to Wolfson Children’s Hospital because she was burning up with a fever, vomiting profusely and was in extreme pain again. She was again rushed into emergency surgery because the repair that was made ruptured and was gushing waste (poop) into her abdominal cavity. This time the doctor told her mother that they had to leave part of her intestines outside of her body in a special bag because they were too swollen to put them back in. He told her that Amanda would be placed in a heavily sedated state (not in a coma but a twilight sleep) to keep her from pulling on her intestines or harming herself any further. This time the surgery took over 6 hours because they had to flush her abdominal cavity to get rid of all the waste, which is what was causing the fever. She came out of surgery but was kept in the ICU because of her state.



The next surgery, on February15, was to flush her abdominal cavity and for the doctors to try and put her intestines back in place and create a temporary colostomy (a temporary waste bag to give her intestines time to heal properly) again. This surgery did not go as well as the doctors had planned. They were not able to put her intestines back in place again because they were still too inflamed, so they were left on the outside of her body. They told her mother that they would have to wait a few days and then they would go back in and flush her abdominal cavity and try to do the colostomy again. 

Saturday February 18 she had her fourth surgery to repair her intestines again. Again, the surgery did not go as planned. They were able to place part of them back in and the rest are on her stomach with a special green wrap covering theminstead of a silo type bag. 



The surgeons have prepared her mom that she is going to need more surgery almost daily to clean out any waste that may be in her system. At this point, her mom is terrified that she is going to lose everything as she has been out of work now going on three weeks and it is looking like her daughter will be in the hospital for at least four more weeks. It is possible that she will need upwards of 12 more surgeries to repair her issues and then it will be an uphill battle for her to be able to control her disease. Everyone I know and even people I don’t know are praying for this beautiful young woman.

This fund is being setup to hopefully help her mom take care of her bills and not have to worry too much about how to get them paid while her daughter is in ICU. And for her to have some money for necessities she may need for her younger daughter while she can’t work. We will update her status with everyone as we know more information. Please if you can help in any way at all, please help


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