PLEASE HELP OUR PRINCESS YARETZI!!!! 

My goddaughter, Yaretzi is an 11 year old, sixth grade student who lives in Kingston, NY. She is bubbly, sweet, kind, funny and extremely caring. Her laugh is INFECTIOUS! She always knows how to make you smile! :) She is the second of four children to Miriam and Felix. Miriam is currently a stay-at-home mom and Felix is currently laid off due to the coronavirus.

Recently during the covid-19 pandemic, Yaretzi was at home with her family doing the daily online learning and playing with her siblings (3 brothers). While adjusting to the new norms, Miriam (Yaretzi's mother) began to see some odd behaviors and emotions come from Yaretzi. It started in the beginning of April where Yaretzi started to display odd behavior and was not acting her normal self. Over the course of a few days, her behavior and mental state kept changing drastically. Her parents and siblings were extremely confused on what was going on and tried to help the best they could. As the days went by, her behavior continued to jump all around and it really began to scare her family. She was not herself.  She was displaying behaviors and emotions that are related to psychosis, schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. If anyone knows her, this is NOT typical Princess Yaretzi behavior.

She started to display episodes of the following: delusional thinking, personality change, horizontal nystagmus, short term memory displacement, incomprehensible speech, acute confusion, yelling and screaming, delusions of persecution, and hallucinations. These are just some of the strange behaviors happening to Yaretzi.

On Sunday, April 5th, 2020 - Yaretzi had an extremely abnormal and aggressive episode while she was at the playground with her parents and three brothers. This incident resulted in her parents deciding to bring her to the emergency room immediately. They had no clue what she was going through or how to deal with it. She was rushed to the ER at Kingston Hospital in the early afternoon. After running some routine tests and a CT scan, Yaretzi and her mother were transported to the Maria Fareri Children's Hospital of the Westchester Medical Center (an hour and half drive from their home). Yaretzi continued to display on again and off again normal behavior with intermittent episodes of psychosis. After multiple testings and continued bizarre behavior from Yaretzi, on Tuesday, April 7th, she was put under anesthesia to forgo a full body MRI and a Spinal Tap. 

On the morning of Wednesday, April 8th, we finally got some clarity and answers as to why this little girl was having to go through all of this crazy and heartbreaking psychotic behavior. 

Yaretzi has been diagnosed with Ovarian Cystic Teratoma. Her left ovary as an approximate 5 cm germ cell tumor on it. This is also called a dermoid cyst of the ovary, which is a bizarre tumor, usually benign (praying it is), in the ovary that typically contains a diversity of tissues including hair, teeth, bone, thyroid, etc. You must be thinking, what? A cyst or tumor is causing her to behave this way? The answer is yes, they can cause acute psychiatric symptoms. This is extremely rare, and in this case very extremely rare for an 11 year old who has not matured yet.

Yaretzi went laparoscopic surgery on Thursday, April 9th in the morning. They removed all of the tumor and are testing it. We are hoping it comes back benign. Even though they will be removing the teratoma, Yaretzi still has a long road to recover. It is estimated that she will remain in the hospital until early May (approximately a month) to receive treatment and be under the care of the doctors and psychiatrists. Just because they remove the mass, doesn't mean that these behaviors will just disappear. Her body must re-adjust and take the time to heal to return to her normal self.

I am creating this GoFundMe page to help Yaretzi and her parents with the medical bills that will need to be paid. They are a single-income family that currently has little to no income due to Felix being laid off from the coronavirus. He was supposed to start a new job on Monday, April 6th but that was put on hold because Yaretzi is in the hospital and Miriam is with her. Felix is home taking care of their three sons. They are not allowed to visit yet either, due to covid-19.

If you could support Yaretzi by making a donation and then sharing it with your network, we would greatly appreciate it. I know that money can be tight, so please know that even $5 helps me get closer to helping this family out during this time! Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to answer them.

If you do not wish to use the platform of GoFundMe, I can accept venmo, paypal, cashapp &/or check and I will give that directly to the family (just leave a message stating its for Yaretzi!!).
venmo: @StephanieHilland
cashapp: $StephanieHilland
paypal: PayPal.Me/shilland711