Help Beckett Receive Time-Sensitive, Life-Altering Surgeries

"Don't Google It."

Shortly after Beckett's birth, doctors noticed a significant birth defect that would significantly impact his future life. Since he was otherwise healthy and happy, we were sent home to wait for a call from a specialist and given the oh-so-helpful advice to "not Google it."

It would be nine months of anxious waiting before we were able to see a specialist, and finally learn that what Beckett needed was 2-3 surgeries.

These surgeries should be performed before he was 18 months old to minimize complications and ensure the best quality of life for Beckett.

However, due to the extensive waitlist at our Toronto hospital, we were told we'd likely wait 1.5 to 2 years.

Scared and overwhelmed, we accepted the long wait. We live in Canada, we thought, and this is a place where kids get timely access to great medical care.

In July 2023, in a follow up medical appointment, we learned that Beckett was still only about 600th on a list of 700 children waiting for this surgery. Our anxiety grew yet we felt there was nothing we could do but wait.

This June, after more than 70 days of frustrating attempts to get a response from the hospital, we were told that Beckett remained one of over 700 children on the waitlist, with no additional details provided, and informed it would likely be “a few more years” before he would get even the first surgery.

Beckett is now over 3 years old and still waiting for a series of surgeries that should have been started in the first year of life. There is no date on the horizon and no help incoming from the Canadian medical system.

Delaying Beckett’s surgeries increases risks and complications, both physical and psychological. The lack of transparency from the hospital has exacerbated our distress: timely, accurate information about the reality of the wait times would have allowed us to explore alternatives much earlier. Now we are playing catch up, and trying to do our best for our son who deserves to have the best quality of life he can.

Given the severity of the situation, we have decided to seek treatment at a specialized clinic in the USA where Beckett will be seen within just a few short months. Each surgery is estimated, in total, to cost $25,000 CAD. For our family, this is a phenomenal cost we simply cannot afford. For each surgery we must also travel to the USA and remain for about 10 days while taking unpaid leave from our jobs.

We are approaching family and friends for loans and even having yard sales to sell what we can spare in order to afford the surgeries.

This is a situation we never thought we would face in Canada. No family should have to go through this. Beckett is just one child who represents many others who are waitlisted for all kinds of urgent services, from psychological assessments, to specialist care, to major surgeries. The reality is a bitter pill to swallow.

“What was a challenge is now a crisis,” said Dr. Ronald Cohn, SickKids’ president and CEO. “Kids are now waiting longer than adults for surgeries in Ontario. To me, that is an incomprehensible problem that has to be addressed.”

We are so grateful to Rebecca, who is managing this GoFundMe for us, during a time that is beyond frightening and stressful. We hope to use this opportunity not only to secure the funds we need for Beckett's surgeries but to call attention to the immense problem of paediatric surgery wait times in Canada.

As you can imagine, we never thought we would be in a place where we would need to become advocates for something like this. Most days we find it hard to think or go through our routines as the immense medical and financial stress weighs on us.

We welcome all support, whether financial, words of kindness, prayers, and good wishes. We will never forget the way so many people who loved us have rallied around during this difficult time.