Kierra’s gastroparesis, intestinal failure journey.

Hi all! We have decided to restart Kierra's GoFundMe. We were asked to re-share her gofundme. please see the update here in the story.

After Kierra's original surgery (and some bumps in the road) she was doing awesome, but when her ileostomy came out, she started having trouble again and had to restart her TPN. Due to this, Kierra will be having another surgery (#3) to remove the little colon remaining, reattach her small bowel, and remove her gallbladder in Cleveland on November 8th,2024. This surgery came as a surprise as we honestly thought that the only other option was a small bowel/ colon transplant.

Our visit would look like this: Fly in Saturday 11/2/24, appointments and tests, Monday-Wednesday and surgery 11/8/24. She will be inpatient at Cleveland clinic for 10 days to 2 weeks. We were told that if this doesn't work transplant is the only other option.

-Kierra and I will be in Cleveland for approximately 3 weeks, I hope we will get into RMH but I will not know if we do, until the day before our arrival. Due to having to be in Cleveland so long and potentially being off work for 3 weeks, we decided to ask for a little help. We do not like asking for help and understand that money is tight for a lot of people. Prayers also go a long way too.

Thankfully we were able to get flights through Miracle Flights.

Instead of starting college this fall she has moved it to the spring semester.

 Kierra was admitted to the hospital this past Sunday with a fever. She is very sick with sepsis and has not 1 but 2 blood infections. Staph aureus bacteremia and candida tropicalis bacteremia.

She has been getting IV antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals. They pulled her central line and will be replacing it with a temporary one to restart her TPN IV nutrition.

 She will be inpatient for a while and will need to continue the IV meds when she is discharged from the hospital. I am off work for the time being to be here with Kierra.

 I am hoping to trade off with Tony next week to go back to work. He will work from her hospital room.

We don’t like to ask for help, but in this situation we could use a little help to help with medical expenses and the time off from work. My PTO is depleted as we have also been traveling to Cleveland for treatment of Kierra’s gastroparesis and her severe motility issues that have landed her on TPN.

 Being admitted to the hospital with this infection along with the trips to Cleveland Clinic, her TPN and other medical expenses are piling up. TPN is incredibly expensive but worth it. We hate asking for help so we have looked into all of our resources before doing a GoFunMe acct.

 If you can’t help financially we completely understand. Prayers go along way too. We just want Kierra to feel better quickly. 

The Erickson Family