Jaeli needs milk
I’m going to do something I don’t usually do with my blog. I’m going to pass on a story I heard that has a request for money attached. I’ve been following the tale of this tiny baby since she was born. Her mother is a writer on a list that I follow…a very kind woman that I met only briefly before her precious little Jaeli entered this nightmare world.
Here’s the short version: Jaeli is a very sick little baby. She has to grow before she can have the surgery(s) necessary to give her a good life. In the meantime, only one type of milk will do, and because of the baby’s weakness, Mom’s milk has dried up. I can not imagine the horror this mother is living.
I do remember when my daughter was so tiny, weighing her multiple times a day, the charts, the dread of feeding time. I knew that if I didn’t get that food down my precious daughter’s unwilling throat, she would die, but at least I always had food available. In a matter of days, Brandy will not have any food to give her baby. The milk must be pre-purchased, and insurance is refusing to pay. Without milk, within days this baby will die. She is not strong enough to go through the trauma of the tests required for insurance to pay. (The short version is: prove to us that she will die without this one type of milk and then we’ll pay. Of course, it will be useless at that point.)
Some of you may know how I feel about insurance companies and these tactics, and so I am passing on this mother’s plea. Below the link is the message from Brandy. This is real. It is tragic. It is happening right now. On the page I link to, there is a total of money raised for Jaeli so far and a link where donations can be made via paypal. Please — pass this on.
FROM BRANDY-
Help me, please. Somehow. Prayers or something. Jaeli will be out of breast milk in 2.5 days and the hospital won’t order milk for her because Vermont medicaid won’t pay for it and they don’t know for sure
yet that it’s a necessity. They’ll put her on formula which will make her very sick–saying a) NeoCate is hypoallergenic and she can’t be allergic to it, and b) we can’t say breast milk is the best for her
medically until we’ve tried all formulas and documented her reactions. I feel like taking my baby home to die. It seems she’s going there anyway.
I just don’t know what to do. I can’t possibly screen new donors in this amount of time. It’s the stinking money. The milk bank won’t release it until it’s paid for, and it is an uncovered benefit. Even if Medicaid
might consider covering an unpaid benefit, it would take a month minimum for they to make any determination. Jaeli doesn’t have that time.
She is so healthy and doing well now. I can’t believe to look at her that in a few days she’s going to be so sick with nothing to eat except that which makes her ill. Please just pray. I don’t even know what to do
anymore or who to call. I don’t know what direction to take. I feel so helpless.
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Brandy Brow
http://www.brandybrow.com || http://twitter.com/brandybrow
