On December 23rd, 2025 Ali took her young son Cameron to urgent care with severe flu-like symptoms, doctors there re-routed him to El Paso Children’s Hospital due to his condition. There he was diagnosed with Flu A. Ali was instructed to take Cam home and he could push through the next five days of fever and illness. Two days later on Christmas Day Ali trusted her mama instincts and took Cam back to Children’s Emergency department. He was immediately admitted and several of his doctors believe that Ali’s decision to bring him back to the hospital saved her son’s life. After 3 lumbar spinal tap attempts, Cameron was ultimately diagnosed with bacterial streptococcal pneumoniae meningitis, a life threatening brain infection that was onset by strep throat; one of the most dangerous forms of meningitis.

Cameron has been in PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) since his arrival at Children’s, but recently has shown improvement in his health and was stepped down about three days ago. He will undergo an MRI on January 9th to determine if he will need to continue his hospital admittance for additional IV antibiotic treatment. They will also be checking for any indication of a brain abscess. There will be continued monitoring as this type of infection can cause irreversible hearing loss, neurological complications, and potential autoimmune diseases.

Cameron sadly had to spend Christmas and NYE hospitalized, but Ali has been by his side every single day doing everything within her ability to make Cameron more comfortable and to distract him from the scary realities of this illness. This terrible infection and extended hospital stay will create a heavy and unexpected financial weight on their family. While Ali herself is currently without health insurance due to working PRN shifts to further her nursing career by recently completing her Nurse Practitioner’s degree, she always made sure Cameron was covered on a simple insurance plan through Marketplace; these plans notoriously have extremely limited coverage for these types of situations. Additionally, Ali recently received word that Cameron’s stay will NOT be covered as the hospital is out of network for Cam’s plan. However Ali was and is willing to take on any financial burden to make sure that her son’s health was in the absolute best hands.

So I would like to ask all of Ali’s friends, family, and loved ones to help this hard working mother ease at least a little bit of this heavy load by contributing what you can. Let’s lift up the Kennedy family!