Help Support Savannah Marie (Savvy)

Help Support Savannah Marie (Savvy)

I am Stephanie Casey, my best friends daughter is in need of funds for an expensive and very intensive surgery she is fixing to undergo within a month. The cost will well exceed this amount being asked for initially to cover what may be a series of multiple surgeries. This is costly on a single mother. Please read below, be in prayer and see what God would have you to give. All of the proceeds will go towards Savannah’s medical expenses. Please Help Support Savannah Marie ❤️

Savannah (Savvy) was born on December 21, 2011. She was battling a genetic disorder that we had no idea about…all on her own! She slept a lot…but that’s what babies do right? They sleep. On day five she wouldn’t take any milk and was even more lethargic than normal. My milk was over producing so I thought she wasn’t drinking because it was choking her, so I went to the store to buy a breast pump to dump some before feeding her, as this is what we believed the problem to be. I’ll NEVER forget the phone call from her pediatrician in that Walmart parking lot. To this day, I cannot park in that isle. Her doctor informed me that my child was NOT well according to the newborn screening tests that she got back and then instructed me to get her to All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg as soon as possible. She said they were waiting for me and my child already and to get there as soon as possible. She refused to give me details, so I knew it was serious. My mom drove us to the hospital, about an hour and a half away. The whole time, I had Savvy’s hand in my hand, but she wasn’t squeezing like she normally did. Her eyes seemed hazy and her breaths were shallow. I was terrified.

When we got to the hospital, they immediately had a place for us. There was no time spent checking in or even introductions, they just took us back. They tried to put an IV in her, but they couldn’t get a vein that wouldn’t collapse. Her heel seemed better but that didn’t work either. I remember a nurse saying “we will get one started in her head” and I immediately jumped up covering my baby and said “YOU TRY THE OTHER HEEL. YOU ARE NOT STICKING A NEEDLE IN MY CHILD’S HEAD”. Her other heel was successful, but given the, what probably seemed like threatening tone in my voice, they forced me out of the room and told me they had to do their work on my child. I was helpless, and Savvy was a warrior! She was in adrenal crisis, and had been for the last 5 days, and she was fighting for her very life! As I was waiting outside the room, I heard a staff member ask another “do you think the child will make it”? I was completely terrified. I had never been saved. I didn’t know Jesus, and I didn’t even know how to pray, but I ran to the chapel and hit my knees and begged God to save my child.

Hours went by and still nobody would give me a diagnosis. Nobody would tell me what was happening to my child. All these people were doing their work, and I felt like I was losing my child.

Finally, the next morning, she was stable and more tests were ordered and I was allowed in a room with my daughter. She looked so frail, so sleepy, so helpless. I was a single mom, and her father was not present. The day she was born I promised her that her and I would be a “Team” forever and I would always protect her. I had failed.

Early afternoon a doctor walked in the room. She was a small woman with the kindest voice. I had no idea then that we would come to know this doctor well over the next 11 years, but we sure did, and we are so grateful she is a support for our “Team”. This doctor informed us Savvy had a rare genetic disorder known as CAH. It’s a condition in which the body cannot produce cortisol (the stress hormone) and also caused Savvy to be born with physical deformities (some outside but mostly internal). She told us that Savvy would need to go through a series of surgeries now and again just before puberty, she would face some very challenging surgeries again. Savvy would need to take medication the rest of her life to make up for the adrenal insufficiency and that this is something she could live with, but there was no hope for a cure.

Flash forward, she went through the surgeries…which were cosmetic mostly, and the medical expenses were insane. I don’t think I will ever pay them off. She looks to be completely “normal” to people who don’t know what’s she’s been through, and because her abnormalities mostly lie internally or in parts of the body that are clothed, most people don’t even know she has this condition.

However, as puberty is just around the corner, she faces a multitude of procedures and is set for Surgery on July 18, 2023. She is 11 years old and she must fight once again for her life. We have a wonderful surgical team, but the situation is what it is and the prognosis is very daunting. There is a good possibility her surgeries will leave her to live a different quality of life, and once again, as her mother, I’m completely at the mercy of God and her surgeons. We are told to prepare for a long hospital stay and a very long recovery. I have prayed for 11 years that God would perform a supernatural healing in her body. I never thought she would see day 6 of her life, but here she is…a miracle. I know if God could do it then, he can do it now! Sometimes I think it’s unfair to ask for 2 miracles in her life, but I ask anyway!