Support Elijah's Journey to Recovery

Hello!

This is Elijah and he is 7 years old. He injured his eye in October. What we thought was a minor scratch to the cornea, turned into a more serious problem than we had ever anticipated.

Elijah has 4q deletion syndrome and is autistic and he has only been verbal a little over a year. So after the injury he didn't have the words to describe to us what was happening or how he was feeling. only simple speech. Out of routineness the doctors prescribed many drops and ointments for Elijah's eye but nothing seemed to be helping. Elijah was in extreme pain and losing weight. I had Elijah transferred from Carle hospital to OSF Peoria where he was diagnosed with a corneal ulcer. The Doctor told me on December 13th, he needed to be in surgery now to fix the ulcer, it was a medical emergency! We were then transferred to Lurie Children's hospital in Chicago. The Doctor there did an exam and changed Elijah's diagnosis to a cataract and said there was a lot of inflammation in the eye and wanted to get it under control before doing the surgery. So from mid December-February, the Doctor prescribed many things, but nothing seemed to be helping. Then the Cyberattack happened where I lost all communications with the hospital.

Out of desperation and Elijah being in extreme pain, I called St. Louis Children's hospital where they got him in right away with no referral. He was then re-diagnosed with a Corneal ulcer. The surgery was set immediately and the day of surgery the doctor came out and told me that his eye had actually shrunken and it was in much worse shape then he had thought. After more examining and testing it determined Elijah had 8% of sight left in his eye. Him not being diagnosed and cared for properly had just gone on too long.

With all that said and the doctor's consultation, to alleviate Elijah’s pain and discomfort, it’s best to remove his eye and replace it with a prosthetic. On top of this Elijah also needs specialty sedated dental care. All of these services and medical care is 3 hours away in all directions.

All of this has greatly affected our family. Elijah hasn’t been in school since October which has kept me from working and it’s wiped out our savings. To make matters worse, the transmission went out in my van, limiting us more in our work and transporting him to his appointments.

All proceeds will go to the accommodations, transportation, fuel and after care for Elijah in transitioning into this new normal. I understand times are tough for us all right now and if you are not able to help financially, your prayers are worth more than anything. We need all the prayers we can get! Thank you all for your continuous support!