The Dodson Family

Hi my name is Missy and I'm trying to get help for my cousin and her famiily. Her daughter Hayleigh has just been diagnosed with an extremely rare autoimmune disease. My cousin Kelli hasn't left her daughters bedside and hasnt been able to work. And doesn't know when she will be able to return to work. Her husband also couldn't work as he had to hold the household together while his wife was at the hospital. As we all know hospital costs are extremely high even with insurance. Hayleigh has a long road ahead of her and with that comes alot of bills. So please help me help them. Below is a description from my cousin (Her Mom) on what is happening now

Hayleigh started feeling sick with a dry cough and center chest pain that radiated to her left shoulder on 9/3/22. I took her to pm pediatrics and they did an exam and chest X ray and sent us home to take Advil and rest and told me she had costochondritis. The next day she was in a tremendous amount of pain so we called the doctor and they agreed that it sounds like the same diagnosis of costochondritis and instructed us to take Advil for the inflammation. As the days went on she started to get joint pain in her shoulder blades, elbows, spine, knees, ankles and fingers. I took her to the childrens hospital on 9/8/22 because the pain had gotten so bad she could barely walk or get comfortable in any position. They did an exam, chest X-ray, and blood work along with a shot of toradol for pain. We were discharged from the ER on 9/9/22 and sent home with the diagnosis of pneumonia, 2 antibiotics and were told to follow up with her pediatrician because her inflammation markers in her blood work were high but they weren't concerned because it was most likely due to the pneumonia. I took hayleigh back to her pediatrician the very next day on 9/10/22. They examined her and agreed that she looked uncomfortable but thought she looked okay enough to go home and wanted to see her once the two antibiotics were finished. The very next day on 9/11/22 hayleigh started to cough up bloody mucous and I called the doctor to which they told me that sounds normal with pneumonia and that it's probably because she's on the antibiotics and they are working. Her discomfort was still very evident and I was instructed to also give her advil for pain. On Monday 9/12/22 hayleigh called me while I was at work and sent me pictures over of her coughing up the same bloody mucous only it looked a little worse to me. The Doctor that had seen her in the emergency room called me to do a follow up and check in to see how she was and I explained what was going on to which he said "she needs to go back to the emergency room because with the two antibiotics I gave her, she should be 80% better today and it sounds like she is much worse". I took her back to the childrens Hospital ER that day (9/12/22) and they did a cat scan, chest X-ray, sonogram and blood work. It took hours for the results to come back but all in this time frame she was coughing up straight blood at this point with no sign of mucous. They wanted to send us home but I insisted there was no way I was signing anything until they gave us results and answers! Once the cat scan came back around 5am on 9/13/22 they admitted us with an original diagnosis of lemierres syndrome and septic emboli in her lungs. They got us a bed finally Tuesday evening 9/13/22 and we then had a team of doctors on our case. Infectious disease, rheumatology, general pediatrics. Hayleigh continued to decline throughout the night and the coughing and amount of blood that was being coughed out was increasing. On Wednesday 9/14/22 the nurse was in the room and was helping me clean hayleigh up when she witnessed hayleigh cough up a lot of blood to which she ran to call pulmonology and ENT along with the other teams of doctors. Both ENT and pulmonology agreed to do a team procedure to see what was going on from the inside. She had a bronchoscopy and another procedure that afternoon to check her nose and throat to which they could not believe the horrifying amount of blood that was oozing from her lungs. They started blood transfusions along with plasma to keep her alive in hopes they can figure out what was causing this once perfectly healthy 14 year old girl to become very sick. On Thursday 9/15/22 hayleigh was rushed down to the Pediatric ICU because she was going into shock. As soon as we were there I was told she needed to be put on a ventilator to buy some time and keep her alive to let them figure out what was going on and to allow her body to heal. Hayleigh continued to have blood work, X-rays, MRI's and many other tests to determine her diagnosis. On Saturday 9/17/22 they finally had a diagnosis! Hayleigh was diagnosed with an extremely rare autoimmune disorder known as C-anka vasculitis and wegners GPA. This condition is not curable but it is treatable with aggressive treatment. Hayleigh has had her fair share of ups and downs throughout this entire hospital stay. She was taken off of the ventilator on 9/21/22. She has a very long road ahead of her with many doctors appointments and specialists she will follow for life. They can not give us a prognosis as this condition is just to rare for them to say. This condition typically affect both the lungs and he kidneys and although it seems we have gotten the lungs to calm down some, now her kidneys are acting up. Nephrology has joined our team now as well to monitor her. She has some things going on with her urine so they may need to do a kidney biopsy Monday 10/3/22 to determine how badly her kidneys are damaged. We are praying that they are healthy and that these other tests are wrong or that there is a simpler explanation to why she is bleeding into her urine. We ask for many prayers please for our beautiful daughter who also celebrated her 15th birthday here on 9/27/22. I am currently out of work for an unknown period of time and will not be getting paid for the time being and my husband missed 2 weeks of work to help with our other kids and to hold down the fort at home. He is back to work now and I have other people helping with my other kids during this time. Having a very sick child and worrying about how our bills will be paid is beyond overwhelming. I haven't left my daughters side since 9/12/22. Please if you can help our family out with anything at all or even so much as prayers and a share we would greatly appreciate it more than you will ever know. Thank you for taking the time to read this.