Nathan's Trip Of A Life Time

Hi everyone, my name is Bec and on behalf of Nathan's mum, Maureen and the rest of his carers who have become like family -

I would like you to meet Nathan! Nathan has become a twinkle in so many people's eyes over the last 15 years, his contagious smile, his dolphin noises and being flappy happy majority of the time. However I'm sad to say that there is a very high chance that Nathan will spend yet another birthday in hospital...

Let me take you back a bit before I tell you the reason for this Go Fund Me page.

15 years ago on the 25th of September 2002 Maureen and Albert welcomed Nathan into the world knowing that life wasn't going to be as simple as everyone else may think. Nathan was entering this world with something a lot of you wouldn't have heard of - CHARGE Syndrome. CHARGE syndrome is a disorder that affects many areas of the body.

Nathan spent months and months, 9 to be exact, in hospital when he first entered this world being a premi baby and as small as he was. He was in a tiny box where mum and dad couldn't hold him for the first 13 weeks. He was only 5 weeks old when he had his first tracheostomy, getting it out just before he left the hospital to go home for the very first time. Nathan later got it back in when he was 9 and has had it ever since with no chance of it ever coming back out.

Nathan has had a total of 67 surgeries, 3 of them being open heart surgery and 2 brain bleed surgeries cause by one head injury.
With all Nathan's admissions into hospital it adds up to about 3/4 of his life.

Let's just jump to the time I met Nathan and hear how I fit into the picture and pull all the pieces together.
At the end of 2015 I got a contact at the same school as Nathan. Only a few weeks into my contract I was approached and asked if I would like to work with Nathan. I was given the heads up of the medical interventions involved with the care and told it wasn't going to be easy. That day I went over to Nathan's class and met him for the very first time.

Now 2016 was a great year health wise for Nathan and barely spent any time in hospital, I became a main carer at school and had a lot of time for not only his studies but his physio and other requirements. We had a ball that year going on many excursions and different events with school. I also had the chance to experience my first ambulance trip taking Nathan in one day. In September I also became and sole and primary carer at home. I spent my holidays at home with him and Maureen then dedicated my weekends to him. It was a great year I became close to Maureen and got to know Nathan's life story.

At the end of 2016 Nathan got pretty sick and ended up in hospital majority of December and January. His body started shutting down slowly, his liver wasn't doing its job and medication just wasn't working any more. It was a very hard time seeing him that sick. We thought we were good when he came out in time to start school again.

But what we didn't know was that 2017 was going to be a bad year. Nathan spent the first few weeks not quite being him self and slowly looking sicker and sicker. Nathan was rushed to hospital after school on the 23rd of February and ended up in icu, myself and both Daniel one of this years primary carer and Sean his class room teacher took a lot of time out to go into the hospital to visit and continue teaching him once he finally started to get on the mend. His body was shutting down.

He came back to school on the 3rd of May after been at home for about a week. But it wasn't long until he was back on the 25th of May with the same issues. We were happy to have to back in time for term 3 on the 18th of July, we enjoyed the first 6 weeks of term before Nathan was due to go in for a tune up before his big trip but what was meant to be a minor heart surgery at the end of august...

What was meant to be an hour and a half surgery turned into 5 and a half hours with 3 hours in recovery. That weekend the 2nd of September we all go together to grant Nathan his Make A Wish papers for his trip to Queenslands that following week.

But that night he ended up being bagged to help him breathe and then into icu... this time it was worse his heart is slowly giving up....

This brings me to why I'm doing this Go Fund Me page.
Nathan's Make A Wish was to go to Sea World and Dream World in Queenslands which he hasn't had the chance to go to. It would have been a great pleasure to get Nathan all the way to Disney Land in America, however Nathan’s health is going down hill very fast, so we want to give him the very best experience in Queensland, meeting all the his favourite characters and having some great experiences seeing lots of animals at Australia Zoo.

With dad passing away when Nathan was only 2, mum does everything on her own if carers are unavailable. The cost to take Nathan to Queensland is not cheap, and even with the help from Make a Wish Maureen to pay the rest on her own as she can't work because Nathan requires 24 hour care. This is why she has to take 2 carers and all of Nathan's medical equipment, we were going to fly but now with Nathan’s health we are going to drive up which requires a lot of stops and staying at different places so we are able to stop into hospitals if need be.
So please if you could dig deep and help fulfil Maureen's dream to give Nathan the time of his life and make a donation, no matter how big or small it would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: if Nathan sadly passes away before he gets to go on his trip of a life time, all money raised will be going to Nathan’s fair well to make it one that everyone will remember and that really brings out the little man that he really was.