Dear Family and Friends hola, hola. This is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever had to do but I’m at a loss. I’m scared, I’m sad, I’m distraught. This past weekend was supposed to be one of the biggest highlights of this year. Yves, my fiancé turned 40 years old and I invited all his family and friends to celebrate with a surprise party. The party was on Saturday and it was a great time. Everyone was winding down, some adults were chit chatting and some were helping me clean up. As the night was coming to an end all our lives tragically changed.

My seven year old son Dante was in a freak accident where a metal tip dart was accidentally thrown at him and it landed in his eyeball. I can barely say any of this out loud, my heart is heavy. We immediately rushed him to the closest ER that was 11 minutes away from us. In the midst of all the chaos I couldn’t bring myself to look at his eye. I prayed and prayed that the dart didn’t actually hit his eye, I prayed that my Dante was being sarcastic and he was just panicking, I prayed that I was having a nightmare and I was soon to wake up. Nobody saw what happened so I prayed it was all just a huge misunderstanding and Dante wasn’t making himself understood clearly.

We arrived at the ER and as I’m checking Dante in at the reception desk, I tell him to look at me, because at this moment I was ready to look at his eye and see what actually happened. At that moment all my fears slapped me in my face and my stomach sank, I became nauseous and I started crying profusely. Dante has a hole in his eye, you can see perfectly where his eye was hit with a dart. The lady at the reception tried to calm me down and I just said, he has a hole in his eye, how can you ask me to calm down?

We didn’t wait at all to get seen, this was an EMERGENCY. They rushed Dante into a room and immediately put these neon colored drops in his eye. They said we do not need to worry unless the hole exposes a liquid that turns into neon yellow/green and the drops would expose it. They shut off all the lights, turned on a black light and there it was, sooo much neon yellow/green showed up all over his eyes. Now we were on a time limit, this is serious.

The night kept getting worse, not only did we now have to panic, the ER where we went was not specialized to handle this situation, they sent us to a specialized children’s hospital for eye care that was an hour away. They insisted we go in ambulance but who has money to pay for that? Does my insurance cover that? How will I drive back after? I’ll be my own ambulance and drive as safely and carefully as I can, it’s past 1am and the streets are empty and if the police stops me I’ll explain the emergency and I’m sure they’ll be understanding.

We finally arrive to the new hospital and my baby Dante endures pain for 7 more hours!!!!! 7 hours he endures pain as they run all kinds of tests and exams on his eye to get as much information as possible as to how bad the eye is, what is the next step for the doctors, etc. Yves, me and Dante have been awake at this point for way over 24 hours. Dante was barely making it awake, they had him hooked up to all kinds of machines, an IV, a tetanus shot because the darts tip was made of metal. We were zombies at the time Dante was finally done with 7 hours of tests. Next step was now an emergency eye surgery to stitch up the hole the dart made. The hole was leaking vitreous and that was the number one focus for now, to close up the hole.

Dante is now recovering from the surgery, we’ve had to stay overnight at the hospital a couple days while he was under supervision to make sure he woke up stable and responsive. It’s only been three days since his surgery and not much can be said so far. He can’t open the eye right now so it’s difficult for the doctors to give me an immediate answer as to how the surgery went. We have to be patient and let his eye heal from the surgery and stitches.

What we do know at the moment is that Dante’s vision will never be the same. His vision will change and they can tell me to what extend after he recovers. He needs to make weekly visits to the doctor for a year and then yearly visits to his eye surgeon to make sure his eye doesn’t develop any cataracts or glaucoma and that his retina doesn’t detach. Because the surgery was only to close the hole up, the doctors have told us that he may need more surgeries in the future. They cannot give me any definite answers until Dante is healed and they look deeper into his eye trauma. The condition of the back of Dante’s eye is unknown. The doctors have not yet determined how deep the dart got into the eye and if his retina has been affected.

As of right now Dante is home on strict bed rest, and an intense medication schedule. His surgeon has instructed us that he cannot be too physical, no running and no straining of his eye sight. Dante needs to be sitting or laying down with the tv on loud to hear it versus looking at the tv. He needs eye drops, ointments and oral medication throughout the day every day.

Our lives have changed drastically, especially my Dante’s. I’m opening this GoFund Me to help with all my financial responsibilities as I stay home and cater to Dante’s eye healing the way it needs to be. Yves is going to continue to work, but in reality he cannot pick up and help with my financial obligations as well as his. I’m an independent worker, I work 55-60 hours a week in order to make the money I need to provide for my family. Not many people know the details of our lives. Yves is a truck driver, he’s only home Sunday and Monday. The rest of the week I’m alone with the kids. Yves’ job isn’t one where he has the privilege to come home every night, so for the most part I’ll be alone with Dante on his journey of healing and Dante definitely needs at the very least one of us available and catering to him 24/7. We have spoken to his doctor to get all his appointments scheduled on Monday and unfortunately it’s not possible, so for all his future appointments it’ll just be me and the kids. It’s an hour drive each way when I go to his appointment and that alone stresses me out.

I’m asking for financial help, any financial help. Right now nothing is too small. I’m not going to work, no matter what. I will drown in debt before I put my Dante second to anything right now. He needs me, he needs his dad too. I would love to raise enough money to allow me to take a couple months off for the sake of Dante’s eye to heal properly. Yves and I are emotionally distraught and we are very concerned for our son. I would love to have Yves home with us for awhile as well, we are mentally not ok as well as financially. Dante needs his dad around and I do too. Taking this on alone while Yves works is a lot for me, I have no option but to push forward and the same goes for Yves and we will definitely push forward. Yves job has been very understanding and has told him that he can take as much time as he needs off without running the risk of loosing his job, and as great as that is, his absence at work will not be paid for and we cannot afford both of us with a zero income. My only thought outside of asking for a whole bunch of borrowed money to pile on myself as debt is to start a GoFund Me and see if anyone can help me help my Dante. My health insurance hasn’t even been approved yet either, so that’s a huge thing that is in the air right now. But I’ll worry about that once I get a definite answer from my insurance provider. Right now I’m worried about staying home to take care of my son Dante and not drowning in debt because of it.

I’m sorry and embarrassed to even put this on your newsfeed, I’ve had no intention to let anyone know the suffering we are currently experiencing but after everything the doctors have told us and letting us know that we are not in the clear and lots more needs to happen, I feel like I have no choice

Thank you all for taking the time to read this and to anyone who donates I thank you whole heartedly, Dante thanks you, Leilany thanks you and Yves thanks you. May God bless us all.