Please Help Everlee With Her Final Surgeries

My name is Karen Dubin and I am an adopted member of Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba. Many of my adopted sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles and cousins are survivors of residential schools and are a community working together on a collective healing journey.

In Nov 2020, my niece Lisa Keewatincappo discovered that her child in-utero, Everlee Rainbow Skye, had a Bilateral Cleft lip and fully open palate. The diagnosis took place in the 22nd week of Lisa’s pregnancy. The news came as a considerable shock, made worse by the fact that, just months earlier, Lisa had buried her newborn daughter, Summer, who was born with holoprosencephaly.

Everlee was born 6 weeks premature by emergency C-section. She was then diagnosed with VSD (ventricular septal defect) which is a birth defect of the heart in which there is a hole in the wall (septum) that separates the two lower chambers (ventricles) of the heart.

She spent several weeks in the NICU at the HSC Winnipeg Women’s Hospital with multiple doctors at her side: craniofacialists, cardiologists, plastic surgeons, ear, nose and throat specialists and a feeding team of doctors.

At seven months old Everlee went for her second surgery to have her lip repaired to close the gap from the bilateral cleft. She will go for her third major surgery on Oct 7, 2022 and this will close the palate in her mouth. This will be her longest surgery so far (four hours). After this surgery, the upcoming surgeries will be for full lip repair then repairing her ears and throat after she heals. Following that there will be several dental interventions. Everlee is currently on a feeding tube and will require specialized feeding tools for many more years, none of which is covered by healthcare insurance. Everlee is a fighter but we don’t know what the future holds. We feel it’s best to just take it one surgery at a time, day by day until she’s fully healed and repaired.

Everlee Rainbow Skye is Lisa’s ‘rainbow baby’. A rainbow baby is a term for a baby that's born after the parents have had a pregnancy loss. The name draws on the symbol of the rainbow, representing beauty after a dark time.

Everlee is now one years old she’s the happiest baby ever. She is on her way to recovery but we need a bit of financial help to get her there. We are raising funds to cover the costs associated with her next three surgeries and dental treatments, including:

• Transportation to and from Long Plain First Nation to Winnipeg for the next 3 surgeries.

• Accommodations & meals in Winnipeg for several weeks over the next 3 surgeries while Everlee is in hospital for both surgery and recovery.

• Specialized bottles and palate cups.

• Other medical aides associated with wound healing and dental repair.

Thank you for hearing Everlee’s story. We would like to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts.