Help 2-year-old Mako Diagnose and Fight Illness
Donazione protetta
Mako had a rough time coming into this world. He and his mother, Tamrynn, suffered a traumatic birth when Mako got lodged under Tamrynn's pelvic bone and he drowned in amniotic fluid causing medical issues for both of them. Mako was brought back to us and recovered from his head injury, pancreatic issues, and jaundice in the NICU while Tamrynn recovered in the birthing ward. We struggled with severe gastro issues causing Mako to be Failure to Thrive for the first few months of his life. 
We slowly worked through them and by 12 months we had a healthy little boy. We quickly realized he was still not gaining weight like a normal child and since have realized there are still untreated underlying severe issues.
10 weeks ago, Mako got very sick.
A child that once planned his entire schedule around his meals and snacks stopped eating. His energetic demeanor drained, he became lethargic and started sleeping 4+ extra hours a day. We were admitted into UCSF Children's hospital to get testing and receive treatment. UCSF turned us away without any diagnosis and told us we needed to rely on outpatient care. We have open investigations on the care we received there. We immediately turned to his Gastro and Pediatrician and they agreed Mako was very sick and his issues needed to be urgently addressed. Through X-rays, labs, and other diagnostics we are seeing severe constipation, a redundant (elongated) colon, and esophageal abnormalities. We will be doing an endoscopy and colonoscopy with lots of pathologies to be sent in as well as motility testing in both Stanford Children's Hospital and UC Davis Children's Hospital. We are also having to cover various travel expenses in order to get to and stay at the various medical centers.
Currently we are treating Mako with over 11+ doses of various medications a day just to keep his bowels moving and stomach distention below an unbearable pain level, we are also treating his reflux which causes nausea and refusal to eat. Once again we are worried about Mako's weight and while trying to get him to gain he is on a restricted diet in efforts to not exacerbate all of the gastro symptoms.
During the course of Mako's recent saga Tamrynn developed a blood infection. A simple scratch turned into large amounts of tissue damage, hives that cover her body, and a severe immune deficiency. She is having to carefully treat her body-spread infection while coordinating, monitoring, and treating our son, Mako. All of Tamrynn's hours are spent traveling with Mako across the upper state to various appointments, coordinating care and diagnostics with all of the medical offices and hospitals and insurance, and making sure Mako's developmental and medical needs are being met and giving him any small sense of normalcy that she possibly can while navigating the pandemic and his illness..and her illness...and everyone else's illness.. Any time in between is put into managing the household and pets, because of this we are down to one income.
Our dog Finn recently ingested a toxic plant that put him in the emergency room for treatment which was followed with at home care. He is the only one of us that has recovered and we are beyond grateful for that.
As a snowball rolling downhill, our family's medical anomalies grew when our cat, Stewie, started having increased seizure and bladder cystitis activity. We have treated her with a cocktail of medications and done various treatments at the vet, yet nothing seems to be helping her. All of Stewie's labs and diagnostics have come back fairly normal, leaving us with little options on how to treat her, let alone try to better her quality of life. We are using a syringe to get her to eat and drink only after pain meds, she is barely passing urine and even less stool, and she isn't leaving her bed. We are looking into all options including, with heavy hearts and serious consideration, letting her lay to rest as we can't imagine selfishly keeping her with us with all of the pain she is in.
The emotional, physical, and financial stress has hit us like a tsunami, crashing into every aspect of our lives, flooding every thought and every moment. Seeing you child suffer is a kind of pain that can't be expressed. Ten weeks of pain, frustration, heartbreak, dead ends, hopelessness, and the hits keep coming. At a time we are feeling like we can't possibly make it through, we are leaning on our friends and family for support and prayers.
We are asking for help in funding care and treatment of family. The father and husband, Casey, has been working 80+ hour weeks while using his POST 9/11 G.I. Bill to attend school full-time in hopes of making enough to get by. We are doing everything we can to financially meet the needs of the family but are struggling. These four things happened simultaneously, just as we were starting to get our heads above water financially, we had no way to possibly prepare and are barely staying afloat with the medical and traveling expenses.
Even though we are doing everything in our power to get through this, it still doesn't seem to be enough. As a humbling, and frankly embarrassing last resort, we are creating this GoFundMe in hopes of some help through this trying and terrifying situation.
We understand that hard times have fallen on most of us during this pandemic, thank you for allowing us to tell our story. We strongly believe in the power of prayer and energy and would really appreciate your prayers and positive energy during this time.
We slowly worked through them and by 12 months we had a healthy little boy. We quickly realized he was still not gaining weight like a normal child and since have realized there are still untreated underlying severe issues.10 weeks ago, Mako got very sick.
A child that once planned his entire schedule around his meals and snacks stopped eating. His energetic demeanor drained, he became lethargic and started sleeping 4+ extra hours a day. We were admitted into UCSF Children's hospital to get testing and receive treatment. UCSF turned us away without any diagnosis and told us we needed to rely on outpatient care. We have open investigations on the care we received there. We immediately turned to his Gastro and Pediatrician and they agreed Mako was very sick and his issues needed to be urgently addressed. Through X-rays, labs, and other diagnostics we are seeing severe constipation, a redundant (elongated) colon, and esophageal abnormalities. We will be doing an endoscopy and colonoscopy with lots of pathologies to be sent in as well as motility testing in both Stanford Children's Hospital and UC Davis Children's Hospital. We are also having to cover various travel expenses in order to get to and stay at the various medical centers.
Currently we are treating Mako with over 11+ doses of various medications a day just to keep his bowels moving and stomach distention below an unbearable pain level, we are also treating his reflux which causes nausea and refusal to eat. Once again we are worried about Mako's weight and while trying to get him to gain he is on a restricted diet in efforts to not exacerbate all of the gastro symptoms.
During the course of Mako's recent saga Tamrynn developed a blood infection. A simple scratch turned into large amounts of tissue damage, hives that cover her body, and a severe immune deficiency. She is having to carefully treat her body-spread infection while coordinating, monitoring, and treating our son, Mako. All of Tamrynn's hours are spent traveling with Mako across the upper state to various appointments, coordinating care and diagnostics with all of the medical offices and hospitals and insurance, and making sure Mako's developmental and medical needs are being met and giving him any small sense of normalcy that she possibly can while navigating the pandemic and his illness..and her illness...and everyone else's illness.. Any time in between is put into managing the household and pets, because of this we are down to one income.
Our dog Finn recently ingested a toxic plant that put him in the emergency room for treatment which was followed with at home care. He is the only one of us that has recovered and we are beyond grateful for that.
As a snowball rolling downhill, our family's medical anomalies grew when our cat, Stewie, started having increased seizure and bladder cystitis activity. We have treated her with a cocktail of medications and done various treatments at the vet, yet nothing seems to be helping her. All of Stewie's labs and diagnostics have come back fairly normal, leaving us with little options on how to treat her, let alone try to better her quality of life. We are using a syringe to get her to eat and drink only after pain meds, she is barely passing urine and even less stool, and she isn't leaving her bed. We are looking into all options including, with heavy hearts and serious consideration, letting her lay to rest as we can't imagine selfishly keeping her with us with all of the pain she is in.
The emotional, physical, and financial stress has hit us like a tsunami, crashing into every aspect of our lives, flooding every thought and every moment. Seeing you child suffer is a kind of pain that can't be expressed. Ten weeks of pain, frustration, heartbreak, dead ends, hopelessness, and the hits keep coming. At a time we are feeling like we can't possibly make it through, we are leaning on our friends and family for support and prayers.
We are asking for help in funding care and treatment of family. The father and husband, Casey, has been working 80+ hour weeks while using his POST 9/11 G.I. Bill to attend school full-time in hopes of making enough to get by. We are doing everything we can to financially meet the needs of the family but are struggling. These four things happened simultaneously, just as we were starting to get our heads above water financially, we had no way to possibly prepare and are barely staying afloat with the medical and traveling expenses.
Even though we are doing everything in our power to get through this, it still doesn't seem to be enough. As a humbling, and frankly embarrassing last resort, we are creating this GoFundMe in hopes of some help through this trying and terrifying situation.
We understand that hard times have fallen on most of us during this pandemic, thank you for allowing us to tell our story. We strongly believe in the power of prayer and energy and would really appreciate your prayers and positive energy during this time.
If you’d prefer Venmo please use Tamrynn’s account:
@Tamrynn-Clegg
Or Zelle
805-407-3391
Organizzatore
Casey Ortiz
Organizzatore
Marina, CA