As some of you may know Sawyer was diagnosed in December 2023 with a rare liver disease that is caused by a variant of biliary cirrhosis. It has caused many health issues on top of his liver failing and he is going to need a liver transplant in order to save his life. (The full diagnosis story is at the bottom where all updates will be)

As you can imagine, this is an emotionally exhausting and difficult situation to experience at any point in life, but especially as brand new parents of a newborn. No family should ever have to endure what they are going through. We are humbly asking, alongside the Zager family, for financial support to make it possible for Sawyer to receive the best care on his journey to receiving a new liver and for his after surgery recovery.

Our goal with this GoFundMe is to help Sawyer’s parents manage what could be thousands of dollars in medical bills and living expenses while they go through this traumatic time. This GoFundMe was created by Caroline’s siblings; however, these funds will directly benefit the Zager family and Sawyer’s treatment, medical expenses, living expenses, and hospital stays/ visits.

First and foremost, our number one priority is making sure they can keep providing the medical care that is necessary for Sawyer at this time. They have the back and forth appointments Downtown weekly and those fees, appointment costs and medical bills are becoming so immensely expensive that they can no longer keep up with them. The transplant surgery is estimated to cost $878,000 in total. Insurance, once it is finally approved will cover 80/20. If we were to add all of it up with the previous hospital stays and medical visits, they are well over a million dollars.

These funds may also be used for:

1. Sawyers prescriptions and necessary medical equipment. He is also diagnosed as hypoglycemic as a cause of his sick liver and his blood sugar testing equipment is something they currently go through quickly with needing to check his blood sugar multiple times daily. The amount of medicine he is on and will be on when he is complete with his transplant surgery is extensive and some of them are extremely costly even with insurance.

2. Living expenses. Caroline, Basil and Sawyer have a house in Bolingbrook where they pay monthly bills to live. These funds will help cover monthly rent, along with other monthly living expenses while Sawyer is undergoing this care (e.g., groceries, utilities, gas money, meal money while in the hospital as meals are not free for the family even as they stay with Sawyer.) Basil is the sole provider currently with Caroline needing to take care of Sawyer, and even with Basil working things have become financially out of their reach.

3. Any remaining funds after Sawyer completes his transplant surgery and rocks this like we know he will, can be used for after transplant funding and getting the family back on their feet. They are required to stay at the Ronald McDonald house for 2 weeks after the initial 4 week stay at Lurie’s while Sawyer recovers to be as close as possible to the hospital.

If you would prefer to donate via Zelle or Venmo please contact the family. Or, you can see the recent Facebook shares in Caroline’s page with the Zelle information posted. They do not allow phone or email to be shared on this platform. Thank you! 

Sawyer is in good spirits and continues to amaze everyone with his resilience and strength! Please give what you can – no donation is too small. If you cannot support monetarily, please share this link with your network to help get the word out. We will do our best to keep posting most recent updates here so loved ones can continue to cheer Sawyer on while he fights this horrible liver disease.

If you would like to leave words of encouragement for Sawyer with your donation, you can click the 'Add a comment' link in the email receipt after donating to do so.

Lastly: Thank you, thank you, thank you - from the bottom of our hearts! We are so grateful for all of the love, prayers and support we continue to receive daily. They couldn’t go through this without their village!

With Love,

Basil, Caroline, Sawyer & Their Loved Ones

Sawyer’s Diagnosis Journey from Caroline 2/1/2024:

On December 5th we took sawyer for his routine two month appointment and within five minutes of being in the office our previous pediatrician was on the phone with a liver specialist at Comers Children’s hospital. Sawyers liver and spleen were enlarged and he was jaundice. (This is something I had brought up before, but was told it should fade since he’s so new). We were immediately scheduled to be down at Comer that Friday for a colangiagram and liver biopsy to see if he needed to have a Kasai procedure done for a disease called Biliary Artesia. He did not end up needing the Kasai procedure because of how sick his liver already was. Sawyer was diagnosed with stage four liver cirrhosis caused from a variant of Biliary Artesia and Biliary Cirrhosis. Sawyers bile ducts do not function properly and has caused his liver to fail. His liver failing has caused a lot of other issues in his thyroid, spleen and gaining the proper nutrients he needs to thrive.

They told us we did not have long with our sweet boy and that we should prepare to say goodbye. That is no news any parent should ever have to hear. We started to discuss a liver transplant with the doctors because it was the only option he had at a fighting chance. We decided the best plan of care after a few terrible incidents at Comer hospital to transfer Sawyers care to Ann & Robert Lurie children’s hospital. We made the move to Lurie’s on December 12th for the best possible liver team for him.

We lived at the hospital in the PICU and on the liver floor until December 24th when Sawyer was stable enough to be discharged to start the process of getting him as strong as possible for his liver transplant. It was the best miracle for our family to be able to bring Sawyer home on Christmas Eve. We weren’t sure at one point he was going to be able to have his first Christmas and to hit that milestone was huge! We have been in and out of Lurie’s multiple times weekly for testing, weigh ins, labs, new teams of doctors, imaging and MRI’s. These procedures and tests have all led up to us being listed on the transplant list. Tuesday, January 30th, we went downtown to have our all day meeting with 8 different transplant teams that make up Sawyers care plan through this next phase of his life. Finance, pharmacy, nurse practitioners/ after transplant care, social work, dietician’s, liver surgeon, liver doctors and infectious disease have all unanimously decided the transplant is the only way to save his life. Today, February 1st, we wait to hear that Sawyer has officially been listed.

It’s been a long process with insurance and all of the steps needed to get someone on the list and to know it’s finally happening gives us the relief that we know he has a chance now to grow up. Sawyer is a happy baby and has smiled throughout this awful disease like a champ. He is a fighter and will continue to fight!

This has been one of the hardest things Basil and I have ever had to go through. The emotional roller coaster of having a sick child let alone a sick newborn is something I don’t wish on anyone. The pain of watching him suffer and not being able to take it away is heartbreaking. We are extremely hopeful and trying to stay as positive as we can about what’s to come, but we are very much living everyday in the moment. We’ve learned throughout these last few weeks that tomorrow is not promised and that life is not to be taken for granted.

It’s been difficult to keep up with life outside of the hospital and financially it’s taking a toll on us. Medical bills have been rolling in and household bills are piling up, but we are looking in to every resource available for transplant families.

Knowing the team of doctors and nurses are all so invested in getting our little man better has made this journey a little easier. The love constant support and prayers for Sawyer have not gone unnoticed and we can never thank everyone enough for the continued support sent our way. I will update frequently as we go through this journey. We are praying we get the call sooner than later that he has a new liver waiting for him!

**UPDATE 2/13**

As we are still waiting on insurance to approve his liver transplant, the last few weeks we have still been going to his doctors at Lurie’s for labs and follow ups. We continue to monitor Sawyer making sure he remains stable to be outside of the hospital. As for insurance it can take 10-14 business days to approve the transplant surgery (2/8 is when the transplant team at Lurie’s sent insurance the information) but with the current cyber security attack they have been dealing with delaying things, they are hoping to have functions up and running in the next few days. That is always up in the air and can change depending on how long this goes on for. It has been a challenge to schedule appointments and imaging with systems being down and no one has access to MyChart. Back to paper days we go!

On Monday February 12th, Basil went through testing at Northwestern Hospital for live donor donation. He met with the liver surgeons, insurance, a phycologist and finally did labs and an MRI to view the veins and arteries in his liver. That is an important component to the donor process to make sure there are enough for the transplant to use when connecting it newly for Sawyer to use. By an amazing miracle Basil is O type blood! As well as being healthy and just who they would look for if live donation is an option for our little guy. So we wait to hear on his results and should have them by end of week. Sawyer has another CT scan and MRI coming up on Friday to view his veins and arteries as he’s grown the last few weeks they wants to see a real time of his liver now. They need this for the transplant surgeons to determine if he is a good match for live donation, or if they need a cadaver donation to have as many veins and arteries as possible for the best possible transplant results.

We have a few other Maitnence and medicine check appointments coming up and the commute back and forth downtown has been a lot. The appointments are usually from 8am-3pm when we go and Sawyer is an absolute champ! He has his occasional melt downs and honestly who blames him. No one likes to be poked and prodded all day. Something that reassures us though everytime we see the Hepatology team is how happy they are with his growth. He is maintaining a healthy development amidst all of this and it truly makes everyone happy to see how much he can potentially thrive once he has a new liver.

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