My name is Kay and this is the story of my granddaughter, Zion. She is only eleven years old and going through so much. Her mother, Miya, is currently not working in order to stay at the hospital with Zion around the clock. Zion also has three brothers who are spending time with family members so Mom can be at the hospital.

In May Zion started having horrible stomach pains. After some medication changes, a few appointments, and emergency room visits later, Zion was admitted to the hospital on May 31, 2022. They did many checks of her blood levels, and they were still trending down.

They found bone marrow suppression and the lymph nodes in her abdomen were swollen. After treatments, antibiotics and more blood work Zion was released from the hospital. A few days later Zion was seen in the doctor’s office and more blood work was done. On Monday, June 13, 2022, she had an HIDA Scan. The scan showed a dead gallbladder and an infected liver because of the gallbladder. The report says chronic biliary dyskinesia on top of more weight loss. We checked into the hospital in hopes of getting a PICC line in for nutrition and the gallbladder out for obvious reasons. We woke up Tuesday morning with critically low platelets and other various blood categories.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022, we discovered that Zion was being rushed to emergency surgery to try and stop her bleeding again. The surgery was successfully performed but not 100% done. They had to stop cauterizing since it was doing more damage. They did transfusion and infusion (IVIG) procedures all night and got her to rest. Her platelets had come up slightly but still not enough to say she’s safe by Thursday morning. She now has an autoimmune disease ITP that is destroying the blood faster than they can make healthy ones for her. She has still not eaten and is being given fluids by her IV. The amount of medication this little body must take to control her body is insane.

Late Friday night June 17, more test results had come back. Although her platelets have come up, her hemoglobin has gone down. The Hematologist/Oncologist called tonight saying the new test shows she has TTP. TTP is a rare, life-threatening blood disorder. In TTP, blood clots form in small blood vessels throughout your body. The clots can limit or block the flow of blood to your organs, such as your brain, kidneys, and heart. This can prevent your organs from working properly and can damage your organs. We will start plasma and if her levels have not improved by morning, we will start the transportation to Children’s hospital.

We can still not address the gallbladder issues until the blood issues are resolved.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, life wanted to throw in the flood of 2022. Our apartment fire sprinklers discharged Saturday night destroying everything in the front half of our home. The silver lining was that it never touched our bedrooms and so therefore we have a place to sleep. Everything else was destroyed and discarded.

There are many unanswered questions and many overwhelming factors in place. No amount of money can save my daughter, but prayers do. However, being at the hospital with Zion has restricted my work hours and three boys will be going without certain things as well.