Supporting Collyns FAITH

Happy Monday friends!  Today I am going to share some information about one of my besties.  Her sweet little girl was born last fall 6 weeks early and they have been in and out of the hospital ever since.  I recently put together a fundraising page - it launched last Friday and I wanted to include more information for people who may not know all that this wonderful family has been through.

During Megan's pregnancy her Doctor's monitored Collyns growth very closely because she was measuring extremely small.  When Megan was only 34 weeks pregnant her Dr. decided to do an emergency C-section.  Collyns Faith was born on September 19, 2013 weighing only 3 lbs.

Collyns spent the first 6 weeks of her life in the NICU. She had a number of health issues come up during that time.  One was so significant that she had to undergo surgery when she was only a few days old.  Scary stuff.  After that her Doctor's made the decision to place a NJ feeding tube to help her grow and thrive.  The Culbreth family spent another two weeks in the hospital helping Collyns recover.

This past winter Collyns came down with bronchiolitis and spent another two weeks in the PICU.  Directly following that visit she spent two more weeks in the PICU/surgery recovery floor for g tube/nissen fundoplication surgery.  So basically another whole month in the hospital. 

This coming fall Collyns will go to Vanderbilt to have open heart surgery.  The fundraiser will help offset the costs of this procedure.  Traveling to Nashville, food and housing for the family while they are there.  It will also help with any medical bills not covered by insurance and help offset time off/away from work for the procedure and the post procedure healing process.  Both Megan and Bradley work full time and they have an almost 3 year old (Casen).

I can't tell you how much it has meant to me to see all of the wonderful donations that we have gotten so far.  I am sure a lot of people had no idea what the Culbreth's were going through or even what they had been through.  I admire their strength and positive attitude. 

When talking to Megan about what they were comfortable with me sharing as well as on how private they have been so far she said this:

"Bradley and I just don't really share much because we know there are people out there that are going through something harder than we are.

Most people think she is 'normal' and don't know she does therapy 3x per week and has a full time nurse staff to take care of her during the day and that's she's on 8 different medications and a feeding tube, and sees 7 different specialists. Has had 3 surgical procedures (2 surgeries) and will have one more major (that we know of) and mostly is behind developmentally and we just don't know what her future may be like.

But then again who wants to voice all this - no one wants to talk about how unhealthy or un-normal their child is. No one dreams of having an unhealthy child. So we don't talk about it... Because its not easy to talk about and we also don't want to seem like we are pitying ourselves.

We are lucky to have her and God gave us her for reason, because our family can do it. God is teaching us things through her and is active in our lives to an extent that very few people will ever experience. So that I'm thankful for and have to remind myself every day.

I couldn't have asked for a better support system of people placed in our lives to help us take care of her, which I give 100% credit to God. I couldn't do it without the work He has done in aligning everything to make it as easy for us as possible."

I hope you will take a moment to check out the fundraising page and if you feel inclined  - to help support this sweet family.