On Wednesday, January 14th, 2026, my baby cousin Alcides, who's just shy of 2 years old, had a terrible accident and fell out of a second-floor window onto concrete. Thankfully, he survived the fall, but as you can imagine, he sustained a list of injuries including a broken femur, several skull fractures, and bleeding in the brain. He was immediately sent to the nearest hospital where they transferred him to a children's hospital several hours away from their home and was in the ICU from 1/14. As of 1/22, he has been released to the general floor, but his road to recovery is a long one, and he's detained to the hospital for the next several weeks for rehabilitation and monitoring.

My aunt, Ilene, is a mother of 4 who works full-time, while her partner, Ivan, stays home to watch and take care of them while she's working. They are an incredibly resilient and kind family, always doing what's best for their kids. Right now, as I'm sure you can guess, she's been unable to work as they have been at the hospital night and day with Alcides while our family helps with the other kiddos.

As I am sure anyone can imagine, the medical bills are adding rapidly to a debt my aunt's family could not afford.

As heartbreaking as this incident has been, they have been incredibly strong through it - and isn't that rude of me, to call their suffering strong - and yet, I have no other way to describe the way they've maneuvered through this time. I can only imagine the level of exhaustion one would feel.

Because of that, and my being physically much further than most of my family, we wanted to start this GoFundMe to help alleviate a strain that everyone can relate to - financial. I hope can give them more room to lean into their other needs.

Every cent helps.

Please consider donating to this little family.