Helping Hallie

As Hallie's health has taken a nose dive in the last year, it has become apparent that her medical problems are no longer going to be a matter of just managing the damage already done. We are fighting for her life to be at least somewhat normal and the medical expenses just keep piling up. Add that to the fact that we now have to travel between Reno and Salt Lake to get her the care she needs, our expenses are quickly out stripping our financial means. It has been extremely hard for Derrick and I to admit that we can't do this on our own, but it has reached the point that we have to reach out for help. We have created Helping Hallie as a means to help us raise money in her behalf.

We have created a website www.helpinghallie.com that tells her whole story as well as give information on upcoming fundraisers and ways to donate. We have had t-shirts printed and will be adding those to the website shortly as well.

Our kickoff event was a yard sale. We figured it would be a way to ask for help that most anyone could help in this economy. We were hoping to raise enough money to pay for a trip to Salt Lake and it quickly turned into something so much more. We have been completely overwhelmed by the response. We had people donating items to the point that our garage was full, our house was full (17 clothing racks stuffed full of clothes), and our neighbor's garage was full. We had incredibly support getting things organized. There were between 5-8 people a day here sorting, organzing and pricing items. It was amazing. We had a ton of people here setting up and Derrick even slept out over night to "protect" things so that we didn't have to do all of the set up that morning. I was overwhelmed by how many people came to help us work the sale and it was a HUGE success.

Channel 4 News showed up towards the end of our sale and we still had so many things that we agreed to do again the next weekend so that they could advertise it. I think we must be insane! Now, we had a yard sale a few months ago with just our stuff, so I was pretty sure that I knew how this sort of thing worked. People find stuff, bargain for it, then pay you for it and you never see them again. That is so not how it worked. People would find a few things, pay us double what we asked in a lot of cases, left, and then came back with boxes full of things to donate. It was incredible! We did it both Friday and Saturday and Friday we sold about $500 worth of stuff and inherited probably 3x that much. I can't even tell you how overwhelmed we have been by the outpouring of love, concern, and support on our behalf. We have been able to pay off some of her bills and have a reserve for future travel.

Unfortunately, it looks like we may be dipping into that reserve sooner rather than later. Hallie has had continual problems and it has reached a point where we have decided to surgically implant a central line in her chest and start her on TPN (nutrition through an iv). It has been a hard decision for us to make because TPN can cause liver damage as well as the central line will get infected. She won't be able to go swimming or take more than a sponge bath. She is going to be on TPN 3 days a week for 12 hours at night. The other days she will be hooked up to her feeding tube and get extra nutrition that way. She is being put on a probiotic to encourage good bacteria to grow in her intestines in hopes of killing of the overgrowth of bad bacteria in there. We are switching her to a very basic formula in hopes that it will be easier on her intestines to digest. We will be cutting her back to 2 meals a day as well. The overall goal is to give her intestines a break and see if they will start functioning better.

It's been very emotional at our house the last few weeks as we have had to face the fact that Hallie is going to continue having problems and to try and figure out how best to treat her and help her through this, as well as prepare for what the future may bring financially. If you have a chance, take a look at her website www.helpinghallie.com. If you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated. If you can forward her website to your friends, that would be fabulous as well. Thank you guys! We wouldn't be able to do this without you.