Aurora Geminden medical expenses

Nick Geminden’s coworkers are fundraising to help support his family while Aurora is recovering in Madison, Wisconsin

Nick and I thought it was time to post what’s been going on in our lives and how this is the easiest way to update everyone. ❤️‍ A tad lengthy, but I will let you guys know we are going through what every parents worse nightmare is.

- 2 Thursday’s ago Aurora was complaining about a stomach ache which was proceeded by diarrhea. Aurora is a kid who kinda always has tummy issues, so we just thought it was normal. She had diarrhea for 24 hours, and we thought that was the end of it. Saturday morning we were to head to my twins ‍♀️ son’s first birthday , and that’s when Aurora started throwing up.

- Again, still thinking it was just a stomach bug that was working it’s course, we missed the birthday party up in Chicago but headed up and got to Cynthia’s Saturday night, because we were leaving for Wisconsin Dells the next day for vacation which we were all so excited about. Nick and I talked about not going, but surely this was the end of her bug. She didn’t have much of an appetite and drank a little, but we thought that would rebound once she felt better, like most little kids.

- Headed to Wisconsin Dells Sunday and pretty much just wheeled her around in her stroller while we just checked things out, thinking surely when she saw the pool ‍♀️ and beach area and all the kids playing she would perk up. She did not.

- We got real worried Monday morning and took her to the emergency room in Wisconsin Dells because we knew she was dehydrated and was still throwing up some. They kinda just looked her over and gave us some Zofran to help her from being nauseous. They diagnosed her with gastroenteritis/ stomach flu and told us if it got worse in 24 hours to bring her back. Nick and I were surprised they didn’t start an IV on her or ran any other tests, but if the Zofran worked and she stopped getting sick maybe that’s all we needed.

- She stopped getting sick Monday for awhile, but still didn’t want to eat or play or anything, just kinda slept and watched us do vacation stuff

- Tuesday morning Nick and Kirra went for a bike ride while Ro and I got ready slowly. She ended up throwing up the 1 bite of chocolate donut we could get in her so I went to go clean her up in the bathtub .

I sat her in it and she started screaming saying she couldn’t sit up by herself and she couldn’t see straight. I immediately started crying and called Nick to come back- something had to be severely wrong.

We tried to stand Aurora up to walk and she couldn’t do that - so back to the emergency room we went

- When we got there they still didn’t seem very alarmed so they started an IV on her to make her feel better. Nick left to grab lunch with Kirra since we were gonna be at the hospital for awhile. A little while after the doctor came back in and I could tell by his face it was about to be something bad.

“ We found something in the tests we did.”

I didn’t really hear anything after that and started crying and asked the doctor ‍⚕️ not to say anything else til Nick got back. With him being a nurse he was going to understand whatever they were going to say to us better than I could.

-❤️‍ What they shared next was that Aurora had been diagnosed with HUS (Hemolytic uremic syndrome) which is a condition that can occur when the small blood vessels in your kidneys become damaged and inflamed. This damage can cause clots to form in the vessels. The clots clog the filtering system in the kidneys and lead to kidney failure. She had all the symptoms that this has ( vomiting, bloody diarrhea (loose stool/poop), stomach pain, fever, chills, and headache.

The cause was from E-coli.

❤️‍- They transferred us to the American Family Hospital in Madison Wisconsin (an hour away from where we were) and that’s where it all got real. So many tubes, so many medicines. Hooking up an IV 3 times to a 4 year old who is so dehydrated she had no tears coming out was gut wrenching. So far we have done dialysis 3 times, because her kidneys are in failure. Her blood vessels have little jagged parts on them that are ripping up her kidneys, and they will take time to heal.

- We have been here since Tuesday it looks like a long road ahead. We don’t know when we will get to go home or even to Indiana to get follow up care at Riley, but we hope soon. She has been through highs and lows as you can imagine, crying and wanting to leave at times and laughing and eating all the fruit and painting with daddy when she feels better. Dialysis definitely kicks her butt. She’s not a fan of low-sodium foods either, so finding foods she will actually eat has been tough- but strawberries , pancakes and chicken noodle soup seem to be the winners. Unlimited Disney Junior has helped too

- ❤️ If you are wondering where Ro got E-coli from it’s hard to pinpoint. The timeline the doctors are saying is from potentially a hamburger on Sunday at a cookout, but it’s so hard to tell, especially since no one else got sick. Her little system just needed the tiniest speck of E-coli bacteria in it, and it almost killed her.

- Nick and I are doing fine: all the emotions from balling our eyes out, to being mad, to laughing with our little to show her everything will be ok, but our days are definitely running together. Hospital sleep is the worst .

The staff have been wonderful with her though. If we had to go through this I’m glad it was at a children’s hospital that knew what to do. Now we just need to wait and hope her kidneys start doing what they are suppose to do. Thank you to all who have heard about what’s been going on and reached out to Nick or I. I might not always get to respond but I do see them and appreciate them

I’ll try to post updates a little more now, but we just need her body to heal and do what it knows what it needs to do. If you are the praying type, say a little one for my little one tonight if you would.

We will be watching the fireworks from our 7th floor room tonight, so everyone have fun for us this weekend.