Support Baby Christian’s Brain Injury Battle

Christian sustained a severe and rare brain injury due to the lack of oxygen and blood flow during labor. The entire back half of Christian’s brain is permanently damaged. Sadly, about 75% of babies with similar brain injuries will develop cerebral palsy. Christian will be evaluated for cerebral palsy in December.

My name is Celeste and I am organizing this Go Fund Me on behalf of my nephew, Christian. I’m hoping to raise money for his intensive therapies at the NAPA Center in Chicago and SMILE Therapy for Kids in Toronto, Canada. These therapies are essential and effective in helping the brain remap after injury. This is also known as neuroplasticity. Unfortunately, they are not covered by insurance.

Here is a summary of Christian’s journey from his mama, and my big sister, Ashley:

Christian was born 5 weeks early at Mercy Hospital of Buffalo on March 6, 2023. After hours of waiting for the arrival of my baby boy, things quickly took a turn for the worse. When Christian was placed on my chest, he wasn’t crying or breathing. He was purple. The neonatal intensive care team needed to get him breathing right away. I didn’t know it would be 7 whole days before I got to touch or hold my son for the first time.

A specialty pediatrician from Oishei Children’s Hospital came to speak with us and explained that Christian has hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). We had never heard of this. I don’t think most people have.

It was traumatizing and heartbreaking to give birth and have my baby taken away immediately. We had no idea what to expect.

The doctor suggested we transfer Christian to Children’s ASAP as they offer a cooling therapy which is the only treatment for HIE. The cooling therapy protects the brain from additional damage. The baby would be on a cold mattress pad for 72 hours. During this time we would not be able to touch Christian.

Ryan went to Children’s and stayed with the baby that night. I was devastated. All I could do was cry. I didn’t want my baby to be alone or cold.

On Christian’s 7th day of life, the NICU team, hematology, neurology, and neurosurgery teams told us that Christian would not breathe on his own, eat on his own, never walk to kindergarten, never go to a regular daycare, he will need around the clock care, and that we should consider whether we want to continue support.

I didn’t need to consider anything. My son was coming home and there were no other options.

The doctors urged us to go home for a couple hours. I fell to my knees at Christian’s crib, gripping the rails as I tried to catch my breath.

I sat in the rocking chair, sobbing, while staring at an empty crib. All my family could do was sit on the floor, helplessly. We were all crushed.

Seizures, blood clot on his little brain, a brain bleed. Everyday we took another punch, tearing us down to what became the worst time of our lives.

After a 22 day stay in the NICU, baby Christian was home! This week we celebrated 8 months of Christian! He eats on his own, breathes on his own, and he is so very happy. We keep busy with lots of doctors appointments and therapies. Most of the time we never get good news, but he continues to be a tiny and mighty fighter.

In addition to HIE, Christian has been diagnosed with epilepsy, microcephaly, laryngomalacia, stridor, and GERD. He also recently had surgery on his tethered spinal cord.

We have a long road of unknowns ahead of us but at no time do we stop being thankful to God for how far Christian has come already!

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Christian was accepted to a 3 week intensive therapy at the NAPA Center in Chicago. He will be doing 4 hours of therapy a day, for 5 days a week.

This will be Christian’s 3rd and longest intensive. They have been to Toronto and Tampa so far and are eager to get started on another round of therapies to try to remap damaged areas of his brain.

The goal of therapy at this point is to strengthen Christian’s head and trunk control so that he may be able to do simple things such as sit up on his own or learn to roll over.

He is behind developmentally and although he is 8 months, many of his milestones have stalled at the 3-4 month mark.

NAPA is a world renowned pediatric therapy clinic. There are no locations in New York, which means it’s not covered by insurance and they will have to travel. This does not include flights, lodging, food expenses, or missed time from work.

From the bottom of my heart, I humbly ask that you share this link with family, friends, coworkers, in hopes of helping baby Christian on his lifelong journey.

We thank you for your support and God bless each and every one of you.

- Celeste Rodriguez