Special Needs 6 year old in need of a Van
Hello,
My name is Venessa Casares and I am the mother of three beautiful boys. I am blessed to have two healthy sons but my 6 year old son, Abraham, has had a roller coaster of a life. When I was 5 months pregnant we went to get our Anatomy/ gender reveal ultrasound. We were so excited to hear we were having another boy! I remember so clearly the look on the technician’s face when she was looking at our baby’s brain. I asked, “Is everything ok?” She responded that the doctor would talk to us shortly, my heart sank. When the doctor came in he told us that there was too much fluid in our baby’s brain. We were told that there was a 10% chance that he would have some type of neurological issues. My husband and I quickly decided to pray for the best and to continue our pregnancy. It was a very stressful pregnancy. Not only was the thought in my mind every day if my baby was ok, but I was also beginning a never ending journey of appointments and procedures. I was constantly going to prenatal scans and in utero MRIs, and they all told me the same thing, “Structurally everything looks normal, we will just have to see after birth.” The day my baby was born was very exciting. My family surrounded me with support and love and were all able to welcome our little baby Abraham Joseph. That excitement shifted to worry after they found out that Abraham had two small holes in his heart and when they did his hearing test they noticed he had abnormal reactions. We took him to every specialist that was recommended. Abraham’s first neurology appointment was at three months and they confirmed, because of lack of eye contact and head strength, he did in fact have neurological delays. At four months old Abraham was hospitalized for seizures and diagnosed with infantile spasms. The doctor told us we had to aggressively fight these seizures before further brain damage was caused. We went through daily steroid injections, every seizure medication available, trial medications, cannabis oil, ketogenic diets, and even holistic routes. Over these last 6 years Abraham has been hospitalized over 20 times. He continues to go to therapy and countless specialists. He is now entirely wheelchair bound, non-verbal, and considered legally blind. After everything he has been through he still continues to fight. He is being seen by some very gifted doctors at Stanford Children’s hospital and is getting ready to have a brain surgery. We are hoping to give Abraham the best quality life as possible and with this surgery we hope he will have a decrease in seizures and optimize his quality of life. I am not a social media person, I never have been. I am a very private person but I am opening up about Abraham’s struggle in hopes that it will touch even a few people to help us give him a necessity. As Abraham grows he is getting harder and harder to transport to therapies and doctors. He is a client of Regional Center and they will be funding modifications to a van for his needs, but not paying for the vehicle. The specifications for this modification is that the van needs to be less than a year old and have less than 1000 miles on it, basically a brand new van. Any amount is appreciated and even better would be to pass along my story to others. Over the next few weeks I will be contacting numerous organizations for special needs kids in hopes that I will get Abraham’s story out to the public. I am first starting with those people close to the heart. My family and friends. Again, please share the story on your facebook and other social media. Give other people the opportunity to fall in love with this sweet little boy as much as we have.
Thank you,
Casares Family 
