Cheyenne's Chariot

Cheyenne Williams of Wayland, MI is a sweet little angel who has endured so much at such a young age. No one should suffer like she has, and it tortures her family to see her going through this. It compounds the struggle that her father is a helicopter pilot in the Michigan Army National Guard who has deployed three times already and will continue to deploy throughout his career. However, there is something you can do to help this amazing family. 

We are hoping to give her family a little help to purchase a special handicap access chair and help afford a compatible vehicle to get her doctor and hospital visits. The chair itself is over $11,000 and it needs to be installed in a compatible vehicle that will last long enough to avoid removal and reinstallation costs into another vehicle in the future. At the bottom is a link to the chair they need.
Cheyenne was born with a small bad spot on on her brain called Cortical Dysplasia.  It wasn't discovered until that part of her brain switched on at 4 months old.  It was like a short circuit and triggered seizures called infantile spasms.  These seizures caused brain damage destroying neural pathways until the doctors were able to get them stopped.  This caused her brain to basically rewire itself without a manual.  When she touches something the nerves in her hands send the right signal, but they get to the brain from the wrong direction causing her brain to not recognize the signal and default to pain in order to protect her hand.  That's just an example of how different her brain is wired and one of the many things it causes.  It took 9 months of therapy to retrain her brain so she would actually pick up a toy and not drop it because her brain signaled pain.  That was six years ago.  Cheyenne has continued to have multiple seizures a day since then and has to wear a helmet  in case she has one and no one is holding her.  Cheyenne learned how to walk when she was 2 and had a vocabulary of about 30 words.  She was beginning to learn a little sign language.  Through it all she always had a smile and a kiss for us.  No matter what.  During Dad’s deployment in 2017 her seizure activity increased a lot which caused her to regress.  When Dad came home she couldn't walk anymore and would barely say a couple words.  Doctors said the next step was brain surgery, so a month after he got home she had the two halves of her brain disconnected from each other.  Unfortunately it didn't help. We've been to Children's Primary in Salt Lake City, Devos Children's Hospital  in Grand Rapids, Beaumont Children's Hospital in Detroit  and Cleveland Clinic three times.  Always trying find help for her, always coming away with a broken heart.  We won't ever give up though.  We’re researching which hospital to try next.

Her diagnoses include epilepsy, cortical Dysplasia, mild cerebral palsy, meets most criteria for Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, low muscle tone, partial limb movement disorder and possibly Reynauds Syndrome.  She goes through testing all the time.  She's on a dysphagia diet because she won't chew food.  We have to feed her. .She just tries to swallow it so everything has to be pureed.  Her liquids have to be thickened or she aspirates them while trying to drink.

She's slept in Dad’s arms every night since she was 4 months old except for when he was deployed.  We're so scared she'll have a seizure in the middle of the night and wake up scared and alone.  So we hold her, she got a bed last year, it buts right up to mine so we are side by side and we can hear any changes in her breathing.  She still ends up crawling over and snuggling during the night.

We have trips to the doctor every month for testing.  She has therapy 4 times a day 4 days a week when not in school. There are trips to hospitals,  and 24/7 of one of us holding her or sitting with her.  She cannot do anything on her own without one of us there to help and make sure she doesn't get hurt.  She's on 5 different anti seizure meds.    Her little smile makes it all OK though.  She's the sweetest little thing.  Loves to just hold onto us.  Loves to dance ( shaking her legs)...loves music. Loves being outside.  Has the cutest laugh ever.  She's our world.

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I am Douglas Isham, my wife Kerri and I are organizing this GoFundMe on behalf of my fellow soldier's daughter and her family.  We have known Aaron and his family since flight school many years ago. Their heartbreaking journey has moved us to try to help in any way we can. Cheyenne and her parents have been through so much and they deserve a break! This is a small thing we can do to help make their lives just a little easier, please give anything you can and share this so others may help as well!

Cheyennes Chariot