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 Please Help Our Baby and Our Family Through This Difficult Time
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 We never expected to have to ask for help.
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 Our baby was born unexpectedly, almost one month earlier than planned. After spending 10 days in the NICU, we thought we could finally bring our baby home and begin getting back to normal.
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 But just five days later, our baby became seriously ill and was rushed back to the hospital. Our baby is now in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit), receiving treatment for a viral infection.
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 As parents, our only priority right now is being by our baby’s side. At the same time, we have two older children to care for and a small family business, Yama Cafe, that we have been unable to operate normally.
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 We are reaching out to our community for support as we try to get through this incredibly difficult time.
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 What Happened
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 Our baby was born about one month earlier than expected. We had planned to give birth in Burnaby, but while our family was taking a short trip to Vancouver Island, our baby unexpectedly arrived in Nanaimo.
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 We somehow managed to return to the Lower Mainland by plane and ambulance. Our baby then needed treatment in the NICU at a hospital in Burnaby.
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 For about 10 days, our baby remained in the NICU. During that time, we needed to be at the hospital, and we were unable to operate Yama Cafe for many days. As a result, we had almost no business income during September.
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 Thankfully, after about 10 days in the NICU, our baby was finally discharged from the hospital. We were so relieved to be able to bring our baby home, and we were able to spend about five days together as a family.
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 However, on the morning of the sixth day, after feeding, our baby began having difficulty breathing and became increasingly weak.
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 We immediately rushed our baby to the emergency department. At that time, the cause was not yet clear, and we were sent home to carefully monitor the situation.
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 Later that evening, around 8:00 PM, our baby became even weaker and extremely lethargic. We immediately returned to the emergency department.
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 This time, a viral infection was diagnosed, and our baby required emergency treatment.
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 Our baby is now hospitalized in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and continues to receive treatment.
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 Our Family
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 Our extended family lives in Japan, so we have very little family support here in Canada.
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 We also have two older boys, ages 11 and 8. While we are spending as much time as possible with our baby in the hospital, we still need to make sure our older children get to and from school and have the care they need after school.
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 At the same time, we are trying to manage our household, prepare meals for our children, do laundry, clean, and take care of all the everyday responsibilities of family life.
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 With everything happening at once, we have not been able to return Yama Cafe to normal operations, and our income remains extremely limited.
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 How Your Support Will Help
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 Yama Cafe is our small family business and an important source of income for our family.
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 The funds raised will help us cover our family’s living expenses during this difficult period, as well as the ongoing costs of maintaining Yama Cafe while we are unable to operate normally.
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 Most importantly, your support will give us some breathing room so that we can focus on our baby and our children without worrying about how we will manage our immediate living expenses and keep our small business going.
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 We never imagined that we would find ourselves in a situation where we needed to ask others for financial help.
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 But right now, we cannot get through this alone.
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 Any amount, no matter how small, would mean so much to our family.
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 If you are unable to donate, sharing this fundraiser with your friends, family, and community would also be an enormous help.
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 Thank you for taking the time to read our story.
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 Thank you for your kindness, your support, and for standing with our family and Yama Cafe during this difficult time.
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 From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
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Anonymous

Laura Thorne

直紀 内海

Tang Yeung Lee

Jun Keiko Matsui

Jocelyn Tien-Wong

Carolyn Nakagawa

Kennwth Lobb-Thompon

Jan Straznicky

Sonia Lam

Bing Kuen Tam

Please help Yama Cafe.

Please help Yama Cafe.

Still $5,265 to go. Help us build momentum.