We need your help for Tara and Baby Amun

My name is Emily, I am fundraising on behalf of my friend and Co-worker Tara, her boyfriend Hasan and their 3 month old baby girl, Amun. (Pronounced A-moon) I am reaching out to you all, with a very detailed description of what they are experiencing in hopes Tara and Hasan aren’t going to be bombarded with a plethora of questions even they don’t exactly have answers to, but also in hopes that we can provide them some financial assistance to aid them through this medical anomaly.

Amun is the first child and as many parents have experienced before them, life with their new baby hasn't exactly gone as planned. Amun was born with an unidentify motility disorder preventing her from properly being able to release waste. AKA she can’t poop on her own, thus causing her become extremely constipated and very (concerning-ly & uncomfortably) distended.

Amun has been to several Doctors appointments and her parents were given a few tips/tools to use at home to assist and comfort their baby, ultimately however it just wasn’t enough. At 6 weeks old she was rushed to the ER at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. They were admitted and stayed a little over a week while the Doctors and nursing staff did what they could to help get things moving. Once they felt she was in a more manageable state the family was discharged. They were asked to follow strict diet and feeding changes for both the mommy and baby, paired with many scheduled follow up appointments to continue to search for the problem/solution. Things seemed to be going well for about a month when suddenly the problem came back only this time; much more aggressively.

On October 6th they found themselves checking back into Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital to seek immediate help. Amun had become noticeably lethargic, she was loosing weight rapidly and barely had an appetite, what she would eat always came back up. When they had gotten to the hospital things took a hard turn. Her body temperature had dropped to 94.3*, her heart rate was rapidly decreasing and her skin was a purple and grayish splotchy color. Upon immediate testing they were able to see she was severely dehydrated and her red blood cell count was running low as well. This was just one of the many scary scenes this family of 3 had stumbled upon over the last 3 1/2 weeks.

Although they had been receiving fabulous and diligent care from the team at Mary Bridge, no one could seem to figure out what was causing these motility issues. They were able to confidently rule out a lot of the common issues through extensive and invasive testing but their bigger problem at that time was malnutrition.

After several painfully failed attempts the IV team was finally able to successfully insert a PICC line that ran a tube up her thigh through a vain to her heart and draining into her tummy. This PICC line was used to provide Amun with a specially constructed fluid called TPN, which provided her body exactly what it need to maintain stability while on an NPO (meaning she was not allowed to eat anything by mouth). The TPN was administered through the PICC line and each bag lasted 24 hours. Until the 3rd night of TPN, the administering machine malfunctioned and completely drained an entire bag of TPN into her stomach in under an hour. Although being monitored very closely by the nursing crew and her mother, Tara, no one could foresee this happening.

Amun showed several signs of discomfort to which each was reported by her mother but since her vitals were coming back normal at this point the nurse offered Tylenol, which Amun quickly threw back up. Highly concerned Tara asked to see the doctor. He didn’t come… after about 45 minutes of trying to comfort her baby to sleep swaddled tightly in her arms Tara realized her baby girl was having a seizure. Doctors and nurse ran to their aid which is when they discovered the TPN malfunction. Amun was taken to the ICU where they had discovered the overdose has cause her blood sugar to shoot well above 1200. For over an hour and a half Amun laid nearly life less and unresponsive seizing in the hospital bed.

Amun’s recovery had only gotten trickier from there. They transferred to Seattle Children’s Hospital for specialized motility care and she has also been through even more extensive testing to follow her seizure such as being monitored by EEG for 24 hours but also an MRI, X-rays, Ultrasounds which located several blood clots, she has needed 3 blood transfusions, several blood draws for testing, medications and labs, daily irrigation, 8 enema’s and so much more. There are at least 60 different people working on her case and STILL NO ANSWERS!!!!

Tara has spent every single day and night at the hospital with her daughter, missing over 5 weeks of work (not covered by maternity leave) while Hasan continues to work and care for their 2 dogs and home. Hasan spends his nights and weekends at the hospital with his ladies however now that they are placed in Seattle his visits are more limited.

Amun has proven to be a very tough little girl and their journey is no where close to being over, as mentioned, the cause of her bowel issues has yet to found.

We (friends and family) are all heartbroken over what has happened.

Please help Tara and her baby Amun, I think they have both been through enough already.

Anything helps,

Thank you