Fight for Niko

Hi, this is Cora and I'm Niko Stoffel's aunt.

On Thursday, March 14th, Niko had flu like symptoms and by Friday morning, he was dehydrated and having seizures. He was taken to Finley Hospital then airlifted to Iowa City Children's Hospital and admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The doctors found that he had heightened ammonia levels in his system. A normal ammonia level is 30-40 and Niko's initial level was 1000. Thankfully, his medical team was able to get his levels back to normal, but the heightened levels caused his brain to swell. He is now in a medical induced coma in hopes that his brain relaxes and the pressure goes down.

In addition to this nightmare, his parents, Kristin Smothers and Tyler Stoffel, were on a trip to Honduras and were stuck in airports from Friday through Saturday. Niko's grandma, Karen Stoffel, and I stayed with him at the hospital until his parents arrived at 11:30 on Saturday night.

As you can imagine, this has been unbearable for our family and especially Niko's mom, dad and brothers.

Kristin and Tyler will not be able to work for at least month and this will be a very long and expensive road for them. With that, I ask each of you to donate if you can.

Thank you to all. We appreciate your continued prayers and thoughts of healing.

I will update when I can.

Love,

Cora