Jace's Medical Bills

Jace is my nephew, and he had emergency brain surgery on Monday to drain a life-threatening arachnoid cyst in the center of his brain that was blocking 3 out of 4 ventricles and pushing down on his optical nerves, near his spinal cord.

Left is a normal brain, Right was Jace's brain. The dark mass was the fluid build-up caused by the cyst.

It all happened so fast...

The week before Jace's surgery, he had been waking up feeling nauseous, with a nagging headache, and his right eye hurting. What was thought to be a simple trip to the pediatricians office to get some meds turned into a trip to Children's Plano ER. A CT scan got him an immediate emergency transport downtown to Children's Dallas. We did not know why, but they got in an ambulance without questions.

Within hours at Children's Dallas, the unnerving results were revealed to Jace's mother and father, Niki and Orlando. Jace had a cyst that was causing life-threatening fluid build-up in Jace's brain.

Option A: Brain surgery to determine if the neurosurgeon had a chance to drain the cyst right then. Then if possible, the fluid build-up would need to drain the right way or there would be further complications. The odds were 50/50 of this being successful.

Options B and C were even worse. These options reduced Jace's quality of life (blindness and paralysis were thrown out there), his life expectancy was shortened and these procedures used a device to drain fluid and had a 45% failure rate, and he would need surgery every 4-5 years for the rest of his life.

It had to be Option A.

We are elated to report that the fantastic surgeons and staff at Children's Dallas successfully drained the cyst on Monday, and in time he will have NO limitations and has full function!!! He's already home resting with his family, only 5 days from his initial pediatric appointment!

It's a miracle, and we are praising the Lord!

On top of the medical circumstance, the traumatic mental toll this took on the entire family was insurmountable. In an instant, and with no warning, they were forced to come to terms that they could be experiencing their last hours with their 8-year-old son. They were instructed to have family come over the weekend to play with him, just in case.

Niki and Orlando had to wrestle with this troubling reality for 3 days as they anxiously anticipated Jace's procedure on Monday. Then they had to let him go into the OR.

They are just now allowing themselves to come to grips with the reality they had to parent through. A reality that was "the most horrible, anxiety-ridden days of our lives."

What we can do is support them financially. Jace is healing physically, and they all are healing mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We can help remove the financial burden for them as they find their way back to peace, health, and rest.

For those kindly donating, your donations will go directly toward:

Any funds raised that are unused or needed to cover the above items will be donated to the Children's Dallas Neurology department.

Thank you for your donation, support, and prayers for Jace and his family!