Support Emmett's Brain Surgery

EDIT! post from Alea’s Facebook on July 17th. “If you saw on my main page Emmett had a really bad Chiari flare up 2 nights ago to where he was laying on the floor vomiting for hours because of the pain. The next morning I called his neurosurgeons office to tell them of this episode and they immediately moved Emmett’s first appt from August 15th to today.

With the severity and how frequent these flare ups are happening and because of how significant his specific case is moving up his surgery is his only option at giving him the chance to be temporarily pain free.

It’s defeating to know nothing will fully take this away, I can’t go and fix it - I’m mommy I’m supposed to fix all the booboos and owwies and it kills me I can’t fix this. I know this surgery will help him in so many ways, but I am absolutely terrified for my son.

With that being said Emmett’s brain surgery is scheduled for August 7th. We have 22 days to prepare for the absolute scariest thing we have ever been through.

As always please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. He’s about to endure brain surgery and he doesn’t even understand any of what’s going on and what’s to come and that is undeniably heartbreaking for a child to go through.

#EmmettStrong “

Hi! My name is Melissa! I am making this go fund me for my coworker, Alea, in hopes to raise some money for her family during this difficult time. She has already missed work and will be needing to miss more during the process before, during, and after her son’s brain surgery. Below I will share her facebook post explaining her current situation with her 3 year old son, Emmett.

“There is no easy way to say this so here it is.

On June 19th Emmett had an accidental fall from 3ft off the ground playing on his sensory swing and was brought into the ER for possible head trauma, they performed a sedated CT scan as a precautionary and we were sent home leaving with no worries in our minds.

The next morning while I was at work I received a phone call from the radiology department stating that Emmett’s CT showed that his brain is falling into his spine and that we needed an MRI to get more information and details on these findings.

Monday morning bright and early my sweet boy went under anesthesia for a 2 hour MRI scan. Sitting in that waiting room there was millions of thoughts racing through my head, many tears were shed, I even went full blown delusional and told myself this is all wrong.

Today, July 1st 2025 Emmett’s MRI results came back. I never imagined they would come back worse than the CT scan did. 14.5mm of Emmett’s cerebellar tonsils (lower part of his brain) is below the foramen magnum (the base of his skull) his brain is in fact in his spinal canal, his brainstem and cerebellum is being compressed causing his cerebrospinal fluid to be very low.

Emmett needs brain surgery. He’s been diagnosed with Chairi Malformation - an incurable brain condition that causes your brain to squeeze through your skull and into your spine. Emmett is truly the bravest, strongest, most powerful boy I’ve ever known. He has been through SO much in just 3 years of his life. My heart is absolutely broken for him, he doesn’t deserve this.

I want to thank every single one of you for your thoughts, prayers, messages, phones calls, and just checking up on me regardless of what you knew or didn’t. This accident that happened truly saved his life in a crazy way. I know that everything happens for a reason, but I’m having a really hard time understanding why it had to be him.

Please continue to pray for Emmett he is enduring pain and suffering no child should ever have to.”