Hi everyone. This is a fundraiser on behalf of a fellow nurse and her beautiful family.

Baby Dane (pictured above) was born on May 15th, 2020 to proud parents Erin and John Schaller. Dane was presumed healthy at birth but we quickly realized differently. At two weeks of age we found out he had a brain hemorrhage by his cerebellum, that developed sometime in utero, leading to uncommunicative hydrocephalus. Dane required a care flight from Reno, NV to Palo Alto, CA to treat his condition. He spent 21 days in the NICU and endured two brain surgeries before he was stable enough to return home. Due to the hemorrhage and increased pressure, he has suffered a significant amount of damage to his cerebellum for which he has recently been diagnosed with Hypotonic Cerebral Palsy. This means Dane will have life long complications involving many different body systems. His main hardship is movement and coordination development. He currently has physical therapy 6x/ month, occupational therapy 3x/month, and speech therapy 2x/month. Even with these therapies they are unsure if he will walk, and at best walk with assistance. Other complications have already begun to show, including requiring eye surgery to correct his cross eye back in June of this year. He also has trouble gaining/maintaining weight and was just switched to a formula that costs $600 a month. If this formula doesn’t help him gain or maintain his weight, he may require a G-tube (feeding tube from his stomach) within the month to get his growth back on track. His brain shunt, placed just over a year ago, is already starting to slip out of place meaning he will need surgery to replace and adjust it in the very near future. Reno does not have pediatric neurosurgery available for him, meaning every MRI, brain surgery, or neurosurgery appointment is requiring at least a 5 hour drive, and a couple of days in hotels. This has all caused significant financial hardship on the family. John is a full time warehouse shift leader and Erin is a nurse at the local children’s hospital. They have been doing an amazing job taking care of their 3 boys throughout all of this, and never ask for help, but now that bills are coming in, it’s getting hard to stay on top of it all, and not to mention, making a stressful situation even worse. The medical expenses are piling up and even with insurance, their portion of the expenses are over $900,000 so far and nearing the million dollar mark fast. Dane still has more surgeries, treatments, and therapies ahead of him and we are asking for all the help we can get to help this family get through this in one piece. 

Thank you for your time and The Schaller Family appreciate your generosity. If you are unable to financially help, we ask that you please share this fundraiser with others, and please keep baby Dane in your thoughts. He is a fighter and a strong boy and has shown us the fight that he has inside of him. Please send us all the good vibes. We can get through this with positivity and love. Thank you and we will continue to update you all as our journey continues.

This is the shortened version of Dane’s surgeries, procedures, and therapies:

He’s already had:

*Brain hemorrhage and sever hydrocephalus discovered at two weeks old.

*Surgery #1 (2 weeks 2 days old) remove hemorrhage

*Surgery #2 (5 weeks old) brain shunt placement.

*Surgery #3 (13 months old) eye muscle surgery

*11 MRIs

*14 brain ultrasounds

*Multiple trips to the Bay Area with many more to come.

*Just switch to a formula costing $600/month.

Needing:

*Shunt revision (at least one with an expected 2 more to come before he turns 8)

*At least one more eye surgery in 4 months

*Possible G tube placement within the next month.

Currently receiving:

*Physical therapy 6x/ month

*Occupational Therapy 3x/month

*Speech therapy 2x/month

*Regular appointments with 6 different doctors to help manage his condition.