Help Maverick Thrive: Support His Medical Journey

Our journey with Maverick has had many ups and sadly a lot more downs, which has made sharing our situation that much more difficult. We have had an extremely rocky road, and it pains us to see our son struggle every single day. Imagine hearing every day you pick up your son from therapy the count of how many times he had specific behavioral instances, let alone seeing it countless times a day yourself, not knowing why or how to help him when you are physically doing everything you can to ensure his health and well-being. We feel like we’ve lost so much of our son, and the lights are out. We are constantly worried about his future and what’s to come.

If you weren’t aware, Maverick was born prematurely with a brain injury called Periventricular Leukomalacia (death to the white matter in the brain). In addition to that diagnosis after a 6-week NICU stay, he also had a small brain bleed, strabismus, global developmental delay, and now Autism. He has profound struggles in all areas including but not limited to speech (non-verbal), language processing, memory, visual processing, spatial awareness, proprioception (position and awareness of body), motor planning, problem-solving, focus/staying on task, self-regulation, in a state of constant fight or flight, and regressions. To put it gently, daily life is incredibly challenging given all these areas with deficits.

Over time, we have taken Maverick to see countless doctors and therapists (covered and not covered by insurance). While we have had some glimmers of hope and gains, sadly we still aren’t getting the help he truly needs to get to the root cause of answers. After countless hours of research, community, and time, we have found professionals who will help aid us in providing optimal care for Maverick. These providers do not take our insurance, and the cost is prohibitive for our family.

The costs we would incur would be from consultations, functional medical testing (genetics, mitochondrial function, OAT (organic acids test), and many others), as well as follow-up appointments, medications/supplements, and lastly, if possible, we would do an intensive to help launch him cognitively and physically as well.

Given Maverick's brain injury and age, time is of the essence while the brain is most elastic. We have done so much therapy and time in his short 4 years of life thus far to try to rewire and strengthen his brain. With his regressions and current state, we won’t stop till we get him to thrive as we want nothing more than to hear our little guy's voice again and to get him back on track.

As a family, we will continue to advocate, dig, and pursue every avenue we possibly can to help our son. As it is super difficult to do another GoFundMe to seek financial help for Maverick, at this point in our lives, it is our only option. If you are unable to donate but can help share our story with others that may be able to, we would be eternally grateful. Your contributions, no matter how big or small, will enable us to help Maverick become healthy, happy, and have a fighting chance at what we all want for any child's future.

Thank you for helping us on our journey, and please feel free to reach out with any questions you may have.

Love,

The Zappullas