Penny's Five-Year Accident Fundraiser

Greeting Crazy Train Family!

Can you believe that 5 years have passed? It's almost impossible to believe. There is much transpiring in our lives right now, my wife's schooling, and my new job, and we are being forced to move from the place we have called home for the past 4 years, but the most constant thing we have had lately, is Penelope's progress. Since the stem cells over the summer, in particular, she has gotten so much stronger and more stable. She is our miracle, but we have so much more in store for her, and as we look over a whole new year of changes in our lives, we ask that you continue to pray and support our little peanut.

Three years ago, our lives were forever altered when our beautiful, sweet & perfect 18-month-old daughter, Penelope, wandered out our back lanai door and drowned behind our home.

CPR had failed for over an hour, and it was looking like we would be burying our newest addition to the family. Once doctors had felt they had exhausted all options to save her, they brought my wife into the ER room to say goodbye. My wife sat down and held her hand, begging her not to leave us. It was too soon, and we were not ready to let her leave us, and miraculously, she wasn’t either. It wasn’t long after my wife entered the room that the ER nurse uttered the words, “I have a pulse!” Penny had returned to us, despite the insurmountable odds stacked against her. After that, the entire ER unit descended upon her in an effort to save her life. I was rushing from work as quickly as I could to get to my wife and daughter, arriving once they had managed to temporarily stabilize her. During their futile attempts to revive her, however, they incorrectly placed an IO in her leg, which put us in the very likely position of having to amputate. Quick-witted doctors managed to deduce the problem quickly, but not without making a bone-deep incision to save the leg.

Penny had returned to us, yes, but by no fault of her own, she had returned differently.

Penny was ventilator dependent, unable to move in any capacity, and suffering catastrophic brain damage. She was cold to the touch, unable to maintain her body temperature, rigid from the effects of the injury, and it would be 2+ weeks before she would even open her beautiful eyes again.

For what seemed like the longest 2 months of our lives, Penny fought hard to stay with us, which only made Mom and Dad fight harder, pushing us long past our breaking point. It had rattled the entire family to the core, sending her older sisters into hysterics. They wanted their baby sister back.

Penny returned home, stable, but obviously, things were not the same. Much needed to be done to improve Penny’s mental state. We needed to treat the injury, not the symptoms of the injury. With little in the way of hope given to us by the traditional medical community, it forced us to seek out treatment elsewhere, and that’s what brings us to today.

As you all know, Penny has engaged in Hyperbaric Therapy, Magnetic Resonance Therapy. Cold Laser Therapy, Acupuncture, Chiropractic Therapy, MNRI Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Lymphatic Therapy, and countless other types of therapy that has brought Penny to this point, and with results no doctor gave us the inkling we’d achieve.

Penny is NO LONGER on ventilator assistance of any kind and is free of machines! She is smiling again, moving her feet and hands again, however subtle it may be at this moment in time. She is alert again; she is a part of the family again. Most importantly, she is here. She can once join us for family gatherings when for the longest time she was previously too sick and too unstable to do so. She has given families who have unfortunately had to walk in her shoes a reason to go on and something to look forward to.

Despite her disability, she shows us in different ways every day that she has the will to fight, empowering her family with the strength to move mountains for her, and with that, there’s a purpose, there’s a reason, and there is hope.

There has been a laundry list of naysayers, nurses, and doctors that deemed her a lost cause, even folks shaming us for our quest to heal our baby girl, but there have been folks like you and so many others that have enabled us to provide Penny with a life beyond her diagnosis.

There are days when a sense of failure comes over us, as we are not where we want to be ultimately, but there is also a huge sense of accomplishment. She has defied the odds, and as we look onto a whole new year of odd-defying therapy around the country and beyond, we ask that you help us keep this crazy train on the track to success, not just for Penny, but for her status as a symbol of hope for drowning survivors everywhere.

Thanks to all of you, we have an opportunity to prove that there is more for children after drowning. Thank you for doing all that you have done and continue to do so that this once broken family may one day be whole again.

With love and endless gratitude,

The Crazy Train Family