Help Richie

This is my Grandson, Richard "Richie" Maiorani.  He was born Saturday, December 20th at 12:04 p.m.   Richie appeared healthy when he was born.  He was discharged from the hospital on Sunday afternoon.  Shortly after arriving home Richie had not had his first bowel movement and then he started throwing up.  His parents knew something was wrong and took him to Seattle Children's Hospital.  A tube was installed into his stomach to remove any stomach juices or whatever milk was left in there, there was no place for it to go, his colon was blocked.  After several tests on Monday, it was determined that my Grandson had Hirschsprung disease.  This is a disease where your colon does not properly develop which requires surgery to remove the affected portion of the colon.  On Christmas Eve day,  Richie underrwent 6 hours of surgery.  The Dr. kept testing further and further back toward the intestine trying to find ganglia cells which would indicate some portion of his colon was functional. Every sample came back negative.  The Dr. ended up removing the entire colon and appendix and putting a colostomy bag on my Grandson .  Until he is stronger he will remain on the colostomy bag until they will do another surgery and attach his small intestine directly to his anus.  Richie is a tough little boy.  He has had a rough beginning in life, but is hanging in there.  He will need more surgery in the future.  Danny and Olivia have another son, Aiden,  as well who we are trying to provide as much normalcy as possible into  his young life.  They are going to be faced with challenges to say the least, and the medical bills are going to be unsurmountable.  Please help to alleviate some of their worries and find it in your hearts to make a donation.  Any donation whatsoever will help them to focus their energy on taking care of Richie instead of how they are going to take care of their day to day bills. We are all so thankful for the outpouring of concern and prayers that we have seen in these last few days.  No one knows how these things happen to innocent little children, it is heartbreaking and inconceivable, but we must remain strong for their sake.  Thank you for your kindness.

Sincerely,


Vicki Maiorani