Jamie and Tyrone's son, 15-year-old Mateni, was sick with Covid a couple of weeks ago. Just over a week ago he developed pain & difficulty breathing. His dad took him to their local ER where Mateni was diagnosed with a collapsed lung before getting transferred by ambulance to Portland for further care. Still there, Mateni is currently doing okay and they’re continue monitoring him, but he had a lot of fluid on his lungs this past week and had been in much pain. Mateni has gone through one surgery, and they’ve drained about 750 mL of fluid from his lungs as of yesterday, Sunday, June 8, allowing him to finally go off oxygen.

As we all know, anything in the world of medicine is expensive and only gets more so from the start. Even with insurance, reaching out a deductible can be really difficult—travel expenses, missing work, all the things. We asked Tyrone if we could help, and although he was hesitant, he has allowed us to set this up for him and Jamie.

If you would like to contribute any sum, large or small, it will go directly to Tyrone & Jamie and hopefully alleviate this one worry no one should have to have when dealing with a child's health.