Hello,

My name is Casandra Petri. I am struggling writing this but I have found there is no way around it. I am not one to ask for help. However this deals with my daughters well being so here I am..

My youngest daughter Ellie has a few health concerns. One of these concerns is dysphagia which is difficulty swallowing however she also aspirates on the liquids which means it is getting into her lungs and airways. Due to that I cannot add thickener to things to see if that would help her get them down because we definitely don't want thickener in her lungs. This has made things hard to make sure she is getting what is needed as she grows. Her difficulty swallowing involves all things liquid based so anywhere from water to yogurt. We were seeing the Aerodigestive team is Cleveland to try and find some answers as to what is going on and why. None of the doctors or therapists have seen anything like the way Ellie swallows, to the point they have taken videos to pass on to others in their profession they trust and still nothing. So far we have come up short but they have referred us to go to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Aerodigestive team in hopes the testing done there will show something or maybe they have come across something like Ellie's issue before.

I recently have found out we will be having a week long stay in Cincinnati for testing and team meeting for Ellie in less than 2 months. The stay along with food is not covered which means we need to book somewhere soon and have a way to provide the things we need for that time on top of doing all of our daily needs.

Being as we are a one income household this makes it that much harder.

So I am here. Asking for help for my little girl. She needs this trip. While we are there she will be getting a test, procedure or meeting with people every single day.

There is more to all this but these are the basics.

My boyfriend Garret Pelton has been working 40-50 hrs a week and doing side jobs to make ends meet currently. We cannot do this on our own unfortunately.

We are a household of 5 plus some fur babies.

I know things are hard for everyone right now, however anything helps. And I appreciate and thank everyone who is willing to donate or share this for my family and I.

The money will go to the trip as a whole.