Olives fight for life

Hello, my name is missy and I’m trying to raise money for my granddaughter and daughter.

As most of you know Olive has a complex medical background. At this exact time last year she was on life support. A year later we unfortunately are back. Different reasons this time.

My daughter has worked really hard the last two years to take care of all of olives needs, constantly missing work and bringing her to multiple appointments a week. Along with taking care of olives other siblings. Right now she is driving back and forth everyday trying to split her time with her kids and work. I’m asking for any help to alleviate the stress and allow her to spend as much time as possible with Olive.

Currently Olive is in the picu at maine medical center. The plan was for her to be transferred to Boston or CHOP last week, but unfortunately she got really sick before that could happen.

Olive is believed to have VEO-IBD crohns. She has been in the hospital for 53 days now unable to eat anything without quickly going downhill. She is in intestinal failure. The plan was to get her transferred to doctors who specialize in kids diagnosed with this so early. Because 1. It’s very rare so Portland does not have a lot of experience. And 2. Children this young typically don’t respond to the normal treatments. Last week they did attempt to give her steroids in hopes it would help, it didn’t, it actually caused an infection that has made things greatly worse for her.

On Friday Olive was quickly getting sicker and sicker. X-rays and CT scan showed that she has pneumatosis. She was rushed into surgery as she couldn’t keep her heart pumping. She is currently in ICU with her intestines outside of her body, waiting and hoping this issue with resolve. The facts are, 1 in 3 children diagnosed with this type of pneumatosis don’t survive. The doctors say this is the worst case they have ever seen and are uncertain of the outcome.

We all know she is a fighter. After we make it through this tough scary bit we need to address the underlying cause. As of Friday, the doctors in chop have started following her and are trying to get her better. She is too sick to transport, so she is considered a patient at both hospitals right now. Her insurance will not cover and pay for two hospitals at a time, so this will have to come out of pocket, or we are hopeful we can find other programs to help with the costs.

Once we get through this bad stage the next step with be to start infusions of autoimmune medications. They are hardcore and will cause her to be very sick from them. But we are hopeful it will put her in remission and we can get her home and happy again. The only problem is she just had major abdominal surgery so we can not start the infusions for 4-8 weeks because they will make it so her body can’t heal from the surgery.

This is going to be a long journey and we are looking at a minimum if everything goes perfect, 3-4 more months in the hospital.

Anything helps. Thank you.