Our daughter, Ellie Willcox, who is only 22 months, was rushed to the ER when she became unresponsive and having a seizure while riding in the car. We are lucky to live close to the hospital but we have never been so scared in our lives.  The wonderful doctors of Bozeman Deaconess Hospital tried for two hours to stop the seizure which typically only last fifteen minutes. Since they could not stop it, the doctors decided to fly Ellie to the Denver Childrens Hospital since they have a specialize pediatric ICU.  Her mother, Valerie, went on the plane with her but her father, Alex, had to find his own flight.   Since the number of flight out of Montana are limited, he had to drive the two hours to Billings to catch the last flight.  He missed it by ten minutes and was unable to join them until the next morning.

After getting numerous tests in Bozeman, the doctors put in a breathing tube to fully sedate Ellie.  Once fully sedated and on the airplane to Denver, Ellie finally stop seizing. She stayed in the PICU in Denver for three days and then was moved to the main hospital floor for one day. Because of the side effects of all of the medication and having to be on oxygen because of her respiratory infection and complications with the breathing tube, Ellie took quite a while to recover. However, before she and her parents left the hospital Saturday night they did see signs of her normal bubbly happy self when she started playing with her get well balloons.

Ellie thankfully has fully recovered and is now doing great.  She has no long-term effects from the whole experience besides a slightly enlarged liver and the requirement to keep a very expensive medication on hand in case it happens again. It was determined that Ellie suffered from complex febrile seizure that occurred when her body went into shock from a quick onset high fever brought on by her contracting two viruses at the same time.

Please help her parents with all of the extensive medical bills that they will face from being in the Bozeman ER, Denver hospital for four days, all of the tests and medications that go with this kind of seizure, an ambulance ride to the Bozeman airport, an air flight to Denver and an ambulance ride to the Denver hospital. A big thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers and support through the whole experience!

Rough first few days in the hospital.


Transport for tests while being protected by Ellie's friends.

Getting Strength from dad, grandma, and grandpa once they joined us at the hospital.



Fun with get well balloons once she finally got off oxygen on her last day.

Drive home from Denver to Bozeman there was white out conditions and 60+ mile an hour winds the whole way through Wyoming. We couldn't catch a break through the whole experience.

Our normally very happy and silly little girl :)