Mother seeks help to fund ‘fighter’ baby’s medical bills

ROVAIRE SHIRLEY is just four months old, but has already undergone eight surgeries to give him a chance at a normal life.

He was born with spina bifida, a condition that affects the spine and often results in damage to the spinal cord and nerves.

The neural tube defect is usually apparent at birth and may cause physical and intellectual disabilities that range from mild to severe.

Describing her son as a “fighter”, his mother, 25-year-old Vanessa Dixon, said the family has been enduring an emotional roller-coaster as he faces one surgery after the other.

She told The Gleaner that soon after Rovaire was born, doctors at the Bustamante Hospital for Children performed corrective surgery. However, they later discovered that he had hydrocephalus, the accumulation of too much fluid in the brain and spinal cord, and needed another emergency surgery.

But she laments that this surgery was not done soon enough.

“Because that was not the only thing that was happening to the baby, he also had blood issues. His blood was not clotting, so if they should have gone in and made a minor prick on the baby, he would have bled out,” she said.

As a result, she said the operation was postponed, and the mother, who is currently unemployed, said she had to purchase a shunt, a hollow tube surgically placed in the brain (or occasionally in the spine) to help drain cerebrospinal fluid and redirect it to another location in the body, where it can be reabsorbed.

This piece of equipment is not provided by the hospital and ended up costing her more than $100,000.

But she said that after he received the shunt, he became even more ill and became septic.

“His lungs started collapsing, his kidneys started getting injured, his liver started going bad because the infection was taking over the entire body. The blood, they said it was contaminated. The wounds were infected because by then, he would have had the brain surgery,” she recalled.

Still hopeful for a miracle, Dixon shared that because of the surgery that was done on his spine, young Rovaire would require therapy and plastic surgery.

She said each therapy session costs $15,000 and would need to be done three times a week. The treatment, she said, is offered at the hospital. However, it is done only once each week.

“Where I am, I’m just seeking assistance for the therapy so that he can be able to move around,” she said.

Unable to provide the funds necessary for this treatment as she and her partner used all their savings at the onset, the mother of two said she took to social media to share her story and to seek help.

“It has been very, very hard on us. We have good days, y’know, good days when there is progress, and so I look on those days, but it’s really, really hard for us, especially financially. But I’m still just trying to remain hopeful about the situation,” she told The Gleaner.

Inspired by her child’s resilience thus far, Dixon said she is determined to do everything she can to help him.

“I hope that regardless of whatever it is that is happening, I do hope that he will be able to at least have some sort of normality with him. Miracles do happen. I do hope that with the therapies I am seeking for him, he’ll be able to walk,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com

How you can help

Persons willing to assist Vanessa Dixon can reach out to her at 876-209-1829.