Medical Expenses for Beckham

Family Doesn't Fight Alone!

Hi everyone! I would like to first express our family's EXTREME gratitude for all of the love, support, and prayers for Beckham. Beckham's parents are overwhelmed with the outreach they have received, and your support is what keeps them going. We are fundraising for help with medical expenses to ensure there are no barriers for Beckham receiving the best medical treatment necessary. I am Beckham's aunt, and with the blessing of our family, we agree that we cannot do this alone, and we need your support. Please read Beckham's story, and if you would like to donate for his medical expenses, please donate to this Go Fund Me. This is the only Go Fund Me for Beckham's medical expenses. Please continue to pray for our Beckham. Please share!

Beckham's story shared by his parents:

About 4 weeks ago, Beckham woke up & told us that his neck was hurting. We didn’t think anything of it and assumed he had slept on his neck wrong. Throughout the day he felt better.

In the coming weeks, every now & then, he would complain about his neck and we would massage it, rotate with heat & ice, and give him an anti-inflammatory & he would be fine.

We took a family vacation to Orange Beach the week of July 25th & Beckham was back to normal. Never once complained, we checked on him frequently. He played in the sand, swam in the pool & ocean & danced his heart out like nothing was ever bothering him.

After our vacation, we drove to Florida to drop Beck off to Courtney & Cody so he could spend another full week at the beach (I know, lucky right?!). Beckham was fine through the first leg of their vacation but Tuesday night he was whining and crying in his sleep that his neck really hurt. Wednesday morning they woke up & he had no feeling from the waist down and was unable to walk.

Courtney called us & we all decided to have her take him to the immediate care center in Destin, FL. Once seen by a Dr., he immediately said Beckham needed to be taken to a real hospital. No other information was provided. (Heart drop).

Ezra & I booked the first flight out, drove to Cincinnati & landed in Destin to find out that Beckham had been transported again to Studers Family & Children’s hospital in Pensacola. About an hour from where we flew into. Cody came & picked us up and we arrived at the hospital at about 6:30 Wednesday evening.

After numerous blood draws, scans, tests, & a spinal tap (that he rocked btw), everything had come back clean. Nothing made sense.

The next test was an MRI. I sat with Beckham for his 3 hour MRI & he of course rocked that too. No complaints, very little movement, he listened to every command the tech asked. His only request was for me to hold his foot and sing, “You are my sunshine” to him. (I’ve sang this to him since he was 2 & now we both sing it to Zeke).

After hours of waiting again, the ER Dr. asked to speak with us in the Chaplins office. I’ve been there before so I knew that the news he was about to deliver would make our entire world stop. And it did.

The MRI scans revealed a 4cm x 2x1 tumor in Beckham’s spinal cord that began at the base of his neck and went down to in between his shoulder blades. In addition to the tumor, the scans also showed several Mets up and down different parts of Beckham’s spine.

And then he said the words that no parents ever want to hear. “It’s Cancer”.

The next 12 hours were excruciating as we anxiously awaited to hear from the Neurosurgeon about our next steps.

Dr. Perez (who is absolutely phenomenal btw) pulled us out into the hall to further confirm what the ER Dr. had told us. Although, we were praying this was all a bad dream. He recommended that spinal surgery was truly our only option at this point.

Based on Beckham’s scans, he said this type of tumor is something that had been growing for 3-4 years. He called it the “bad luck tumor”. There is no way to detect it until it rears its ugly head. Because the tumor had been growing for so long the tumor had essentially become one with Beckham’s spinal cord and was wrapped in tissue.

Then he said the other words that as a parent, you never want to hear; “the tumor, at first glance appears to be inoperable”. Our hearts sank. He continues to tell us that he won’t know anything for sure until he gets his own eyes on it. As far as the Mets were concerned, he wanted a repeat MRI post-op to get a better look to see what exactly we were dealing with.

Hours were spent in complete agony while we waited for them to take Beckham back to surgery. Then more hours of waiting for updates during surgery. 6 hours later, (2:15am) Dr. Perez comes in to tell us that Beckham did great in surgery & he was being moved to the PICU. We wouldn’t know how successful the surgery was until his post-op MRI.

Again, we were faced with more waiting. By 5:00pm the next day they were finally wheeling Beckham down for his post-op MRI. By 8:00pm he finally returned back to the PICU. We were told that we would not get the results of his post-op MRI until the next morning.

The waiting is the worst part.

Friday around noon Dr. Perez comes in to give us the results of the MRI. He proceeds to go over every detail of the surgery and then he said something that none of us were expecting to hear; “I feel confident that I got the whole tumor, with good margins”.

Immediately Ezra & I asked him to repeat what he had said because based on the facts we had been faced with previously, this was not a likely possibility.

Then he repeated it again; “I got the whole tumor”. This was truly miracle news to us. Dr. Perez then says; “this was best case scenario for Beckham”.

Now, to follow up with that news, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. We still do not know what kind of cancer we are dealing with. We still do not know what the Mets in his spine are, we still don’t know know if Beckham’s paralysis is temporary or permanent, and we still do not have a treatment plan.

However, this was a major win. About 30 minutes later, Beckham was extubated and fully breathing on his own.

Fast forward to about 1:30 Saturday afternoon. A different doctor comes in and asks to speak with us privately. Dr. Swartz; hematology & oncology. Our hearts sank.

He proceeds to tell us essentially the same information we gathered previously from Dr. Perez. Except.. he goes a little further in depth about the possibilities of what Cancer this may be. He says that sometimes these tumors that grow can be benign or they can be malignant. However, there is no possible way to know without waiting for the pathology report.

Currently, we’re at a standstill. Beckham is still recovering from spinal surgery. He still does not have any sensation below his waist but that could be from all of the swelling caused by the tumor pressing on his nerves for so long. We will not have any results back from pathology until Wednesday (8/9/23). So again.. we’re back to waiting… (have I mentioned we realllllllly hate this part)??

Beckham is in good spirits, he doesn’t know what’s happening and we’re not ready to tell him until we know ourselves and have time to process. But he’s an extremely smart child, he knows somethings not right.

There are a lot of possibilities, both good & bad so we will continue to pray for nothing but good outcomes & we ask you to do the same.

We are hoping that once we have some answers, we can transport Beckham to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital as they have the top Pediatric Oncology program in the country. (& this puts us much closer to home).

We miss our families, we miss our other kids (Zeke & Sutton), but most importantly, we miss normalcy. We just want our WWE lovin, James Brown dancin, Elvis singing, sweet baby Beck, back.

We believe that God is stronger than this. That God has already given us one miracle & we know that he’s not finished with Beckham yet. So until we can get back to normalcy, we will continue to pray & continue to fight for our son.

Ezra, myself, Courtney, & Cody, sincerely SINCERELY appreciate everyone’s continued thoughts, prayers, donations, etc. his army grows by the second and we are in awe of the amount of people that have come together in support of Beck.

Please don’t stop praying for him. We remain hopeful that we can bring our baby home soon & we know he will be welcomed with open arms.

Thank you all again!