Stevie's Fearless Fight to Recovery

Stevie Lynn Thomas was born to Craig and Katie Thomas on Nov 9th, 2022, weighing 9lbs 15oz at Hoag hospital. Such a big beautiful girl appeared to be the picture of perfect health until shortly after birth she began to experience seizures, thrusting the young family into a stressful state of high alert. The Thomas family has been forced to juggle life, work, recovery, and now a sick newborn. With bills stacking high, they have had to get back to work in an effort to keep up, taking turns between going to the hospital and caring for Stevie's sister, Harper.

In a time where family is the focus, let's help to afford the Thomas family the time they deserve to spend with Stevie & Harper by contributing to their medical expenses. For any of us that know Katie and Craig and their growing family, we can all attest that either generosity has been felt. We are now reaching out to you, our community, to help to support them through this difficult time. No one deserves to successfully persevere through this experience more than the Thomas family.

Throughout the first day of Stevie's human journey, she would suddenly clench up and stop breathing for prolonged periods of time. She was quickly intubated and moved to Choc hospital in Orange after a seizure medication was administered. Once there the testing truly began. EEG, sonogram, spinal tap, blood work genomic study, genetic studies, metabolic study, MRI, Echo Cardiograph, and so on. This is a lot for a one-day-old baby to go through but thankfully, Stevie is fierce.

The results of all the testing exposed a rare Genomic anomaly. Her 8th chromosome has a deletion and reverse duplication. Physically, this has resulted in a thin corpus callosum (the part of the brain connecting its two hemispheres) resulting in the stunting of the overall development of her brain and developmental issues near her brain stem. Combined with damage from seizures, Stevie has low tonality and now needs several types of therapies to reach critical milestones, like being able to eat orally as she currently silently aspirates (liquid gets to her lungs without her coughing or showing signs) while doing so.

For the time being, she has been using a feeding tube (G-Tube giving access directly to her stomach) while the therapy is administered and given time to work towards the hope of meeting those milestones. The Thomas family is being released from the hospital with a dense schedule of PT and OT. As they work, hope, and pray for expanded functionality and a full life for their beautiful little girl they also face a dynamic juggling act;

balancing this new blessing with its immense challenges, the care and attention for their older daughter, and making time to keep their small business afloat.

Their hands are beyond full, not to mention the emotional taxation they’re enduring.

In this time of year when our own families are the focus of attention, let’s be grateful for the things we take for granted and show support to our extended family with all the love, prayers, and financial contributions large or small that I know our community can provide. We know that the Thomas family would be beyond grateful for any relief in this most difficult time, thank you.