My name is Louis Garulle, and I am writing this through tears from our home in Texas. Our family is completely broken, exhausted, and terrified.

On July 7, 2026, what was supposed to be a beautiful family vacation turned into a parent’s worst nightmare. My two-year-old daughter, Eliza Kathryn, while visiting her great-grandmother in Minnesota became critically ill and had to be life-flighted to Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Our family plunged into absolute panic as we watched our little girl’s condition deteriorate. The fear and devastation of watching your child come so close to death is something no family should ever have to experience.

At Mayo, doctors discovered that Eliza has a severe, 4 cm-long esophageal stricture measuring only 2 mm wide—barely the width of a small coffee straw. The stricture likely caused a vomiting episode earlier that day to perforate her esophagus, allowing fluid to spill into her chest cavity. This led to her lung collapsing and nearly took her life.

For roughly two weeks, our sweet girl lay on a ventilator, with machines breathing for her while chest tubes drained the fluid from her lung cavity. She needed feeding tubes placed directly into her stomach and small intestine because she could no longer swallow.

Watching your baby fight for every breath, swollen and covered in tubes and wires, changes you forever. 

After months of agonizing uncertainty, Eliza was finally stable enough to return home to Texas. But there was no celebration. We came home knowing the hardest part was still ahead: a grueling surgery and years of therapy.

We are now consulting with pediatric surgeons and GI specialists across the country to find a way to save our daughter’s life. We have been told that Eliza’s esophagus cannot be saved.

She will require an extremely invasive procedure called a jejunal tissue graft. Surgeons will remove the damaged portion of her esophagus, harvest a section of her small intestine, and use that tissue to create a new passage for her to swallow.

The surgery could require her to remain intubated and heavily sedated for up to two months. Even if the graft is successful, Eliza faces years of physical and speech therapy just to learn how to swallow and eat safely again.

We are already facing more than $400,000 in out-of-pocket medical and emergency transportation expenses, and we know those costs will rise dramatically with the surgeries and treatment ahead.

As if this weren’t enough, Ariel is seven months pregnant with our second child, a baby boy due at the end of November. We are trying to care for Eliza around the clock, prepare for a newborn, and somehow figure out how we will manage a potential two-month hospital stay while welcoming a baby into our family.

We are terrified of losing our home. We are terrified of losing everything. Most of all, we are terrified for our daughter’s future.

Please Help Us Save Eliza

We are swallowing our pride and asking for help because we cannot do this alone. Every dollar raised will go toward Eliza’s medical care, surgeries, transportation, hospitalization, and the years of therapy she will need to recover.

If you cannot donate, please consider sharing Eliza’s story and keeping our family in your prayers. A share could reach someone who can help give our little girl a chance at the future she deserves.

We just want Eliza to be able to breathe, swallow, eat, grow, and live without pain.

Thank you for reading our story, for sharing it, and for holding our family in your hearts.