This loan has been repaid!
First Posted On: November 5, 2009
Name: Emily
Age: 3 years old
Location: Arizona, USA
Diagnosis: Autism
Loan Sought: $370
Loan Needed For: Initial parent interview and child assessment with DAN! doctor Joel Morgan, scheduled for November 19, 2009.
Repayment Terms: One lump-sum repayment due by December 1, 2010.
Other Notes: Emily's mom, Camille, writes, "Emily is 3 and has been diagnosed [with autism] for a year. She is loving and spirited and has come a long way over the last year. She is in therapy most of her days and is the hardest working 3 year old that we know! We know that taking this next step in her healing is going to help her gut issues tremendously.
Emily has some GI [gastro-intestinal] issues. She doesn't eat for 5 - 6 days at a time, a few times a month. We have taken her to GI doctors, blood work drawn and she has gotten scoped and biopsies have come back negative. They say that it is an "Autism thing" and she has mild acid reflux, but they cannot provide any other explanation of what could be happening. We need to see a DAN! [Defeat Autism Now] doctor at this point, desperately, as she continues to lose weight. Thank you so much. I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to give Emily this opportunity that she so desperately needs."
Special Note: Camille learned about Lend4Health through a fellow member of her Autism Society of America group, Matthias' mom Lisa.
Reference Provided By: Tracey C. and Gina B.
Emily's Community of Lenders:
Karen F: $10 ["Happy Cinco de Linco!"]
Beth: $10
Jeanne: $5 ["Happy Cinco de Linco!"]
Petra: $5 ["Happy Cinco de Linco!"]
Joan: $25 [Cinco de Linco]
Allie: $10 ["Cinco de linco loan ($5 for each of my healthy kids)"]
Angela: $20 ["Cinco de Linco!"]
Renee: $5 ["Cinco de Linco!"]
Tracey: $50 ["Love you, Em!"]
Sheryl: $5 ["Happy Cinco de Linco!"]
Amy: $5 ["In honor of my son Jaret who wanted to give his allowance to a good cause."]
Grandma Gini: $25 ["Welcome to lend4health, hope you get funded fast today! Keep smiling!"]
Jennifer T: $50
Kerri: $20 ["This is an awesome service!"]
Alida (Alano's mom): $5 ["Happy Cinco de Linco Emily! May God bless you on your way to recovery!"]
Joseph: $10
Karen F (again): $10
Joan (again): $25
Tracey (again): $50
Christia: $30 ["Good luck! Dr. Morgan has been great for us!"]
UPDATES - UPDATES - UPDATES
November 10, 2009: This loan has been funded!
November 10, 2009: Promissory note sent to Camille for signature.
November 11, 2009: Signed promissory note received.
November 11, 2009: Loan of $375 disbursed via check in mail. This loan is scheduled to be repaid in one lump-sum by December 1, 2010.
November 16, 2009: Thank you from Camille: "I apologize for taking so long to send this to you...life has gotten in the way! I can't tell you what this loan means to us, so I thought illustrating it and showing what Emily goes through will help show how much this means to her and our family.
Four nights ago, Emily woke up in the middle of the night screaming for the second time in the past week. She was holding her stomach and saying "owie." She had explosive diarrhea (which resulted in a messy bed!) after being constipated all day. She was in so much pain. This example is something that happens on a weekly basis. Normally, after cleaning her up, I would have held her and told her that I was sorry, that I don't know what to do or what hurts her so badly. I would have told her that I wish I could take it all away and make her feel better to where this doesn't happen again, week after week. I would have cried alongside her, feeling helpless.
Not this time. This time, I was able to tell her that I know her belly hurts and that we are going to get her help. I told her all about the nice people who lent us money to take her to the specialty doctor. I told her how we were going to do everything that can possibly be done to help her belly feel better. I told her that there were people who loved her and were doing what they could to help us to get her help. I told her about Dr. Morgan and about all the kids he is helping, just like her. I told her that her appointment was coming up soon and there hopefully wouldn't be many more nights like this.
I don't think she understood most of what I was telling her (although she surprises me every day with what she does understand), but it made me feel better knowing that seeing a DAN! doctor was going to be a possibility. Instead of feeling helpless, I felt full of hope and love, knowing that loved ones and perfect strangers helped make seeing a doctor that could help her a possibility.
On the day that we found out our loan had been funded, Emily and I had a dance party. We did the happy dance over and over again. I told her that we are going to be able to take her to the doctor that will help make her belly feel better and I put out her markers and construction paper. I have attached her drawing and thought it appropriate to share it with you and those that funded our loan. More times then not, she draws sad faces. I think because she doesn't feel good most of the time. Knowing that she was going to see a doctor to help her belly must have made her happy... "Emily" in the picture, is smiling.
So, Thank You. Thank you a million times, thank you. We wouldn't have been able to take this next step if it weren't for all of you and Lend4Health. Thank you for making it possible to help my little girl.
Sincerely yours,
Camille"
November 27, 2009: Update from Camille: "I wanted to let you know how the DAN! appointments went with Dr. Morgan.
It was GREAT! We went over the paperwork I filled out and Emily's history that I wrote and such. I told him that so far in the month of November, Emily didn't eat food 12 days out of 19. Not only was he shocked at the severity of Emily's hunger strikes, he also realized very quickly that something was severely wrong with Emily's GI/immune system. He couldn't understand why Phoenix Children's Hospital did not do more and dig deeper. He looked at the red circles under her eyes and knew he was looking at a sick girl. PCH didn't even do a thorough endoscopy and didn't do a full colonoscopy which he was really upset about. He thinks that they could have found something if they looked, which has been my feeling all along. I felt that there was so much more that they could do, but instead we got the brush off and told that it was an "autism thing" and that we need to get working with a better feeding therapist.
He ordered a stool analysis, blood work and a urine test to see if we could find what was happening. He said that we would only do the necessary tests first instead of doing everything, to not only help ease the cost of it all, but also so we don't do unnecessary tests and waste money. We will let the tests guide us on what to do next. I thought that was not only wise, but a great plan. He thinks that she has major food sensitivities other then what we already know about, along with either a bacterial infection/overgrowth or a fungal infection/overgrowth. Her immune system is elevated and working harder then it should, which explains the fevers every other week (or every other day in some cases).
He also started her on a multi that is good for kids on the spectrum, a probiotic (although we can't start it until after the stool test) and an EFA. He loaded me up with books and studies to look at. He also put me in touch with a feeding therapist that works with ASD kids that have severe feeding issues/hunger strikes. Unfortunately, she is not contracted with the state, so we are unable to afford her. She did send me some info though and invited us to hear her speak at some upcoming events.
The most important thing that he did was give us hope. Hope that something could be done, or looked into further. He was confident that with a little more digging, we could find the cause of her pain and help ease it. He said that he thinks once the pain is gone, we will need to teach Emily to eat again. He feels that she has associated eating with pain and does the minimum food intake to just stay alive.
So, Eric and I were trying to figure out how to pay for the tests, because we need to do them soon. Thankfully, his father has said that he will pay for all of her testing. He read the reports and realize it is a real issue. He was impressed with the level of expertise and thoroughness that Dr. Morgan gave Emily.
We see him again in 3 weeks to go over tests and the very detailed food/poop/behavior journal that we were asked to complete in the mean time. I feel like we are going in the right direction and look forward to Emily's healing journey.
Thank you so much for all that you have done and continue to do for so many families. With all of the negativity and everything that is happening in our world, I think we have lost faith in people. We seem to focus on the bad, crime shows that depict unspeakable things are on our televisions every night, the news is full of stories of hate, despair and grief. You and the lenders at Lend4Health have helped me to believe in people again and the great things that a small community can do.
Much love,
Camille"
December 17, 2010: Lump sum repayment of $375 received. This loan has been repaid in full!
Update from Camille: "Emily is doing great. We were unable to continue with her DAN! [Defeat Autism Now!] protocol, due to financial reasons. We are still exploring medically at this point though because she has insurance that will pay for it. My husband lost his job in October, and before that we were still playing catch up from the last time he was unemployed.
We are seeing a very good GI doctor that was recommended to us from our local Autism Society of America group. We are in the exploratory phase of food allergies, etc. Hopefully, we will get her allergies and diet under control. From the little that we have done, she is showing great progress with her chronic constipation. She is finding relief AND a very happy kid. We haven't had a tummy screaming fit in quite some time, so we are very grateful for that.
The DAN! doctor that we saw with the Lend4Health loan was incredible. He helped me to find her signals of something going on, and how to help. Although we cannot continue with him at this time, we are grateful for the opportunity to have seen him. We also were able to pay for my son to be seen by him to help him with his chronic diarrhea issue. Both kids are still having some issues, but it is looking much, much better.
On another note, we did have our baby! Benjamin was born 8 pounds 14 ounces. Due to complications during birth though, he was airavac'd to the NICU at Phoenix Childrens Hospital. He is still there, but we hope to have him home soon. It has been hard on all of us, but we cannot wait to have our whole family under one roof! He was not breathing at birth and was deprived of oxygen for some time. We are seeing developmental delays now and will have to continue to monitor him as he grows. He is at risk now for Cerebral Palsy in addition to his already "at risk" status for Autism, since our other two have it. We are happy that he is finally here!
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and Holiday season!
With love and appreciation,
Camille and Emily
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