Neo's Medical Fund

As many of you now know, our mighty, precious little boy became emergently ill on Monday morning (Jan 31). He was 100% the previous night, and then Monday morning, we found him in his bed covered in brown vomit, distended and rigid belly, and shaking in pain. We rushed him to the ER and, upon X-ray, found what looked like a bowel obstruction, and blood work showed an infection somewhere.

He was admitted to the med-surg pediatric floor, and over the next day, his belly continued to swell, becoming rock hard, and the pain increased. He continued to vomit every few hours despite meds. Something wasn’t right. His blood work showed worsening infection despite 24 hours of antibiotics. We then did a CT scan of the abdomen Wednesday morning (Feb 2).

It was found on CT what looked like a large (8.7cm x 7cm x 5.4cm) abscess in his abdominal cavity. He was then scheduled for a laparotomy (open bowel surgery) that evening. While we waited for 18:30 to come, he continually got sicker and sicker.

We are so grateful for friends here in Johannesburg that came to his room and prayed and shed tears over little Neo and spoke encouragement to us, new parents.

Dr. Loveland (the pediatric surgeon) was phenomenal, and the surgery went way better than he (and us) expected. There was no abscess, but his bowels had essentially twisted upon themselves (due to a previous bowel surgery he had in 2019), and part of his bowel was dead. Dr. Loveland was able to remove a small portion of the bowel and reattach the healthy bowel - no ileostomy or anything of the sort!

He is doing well, considering but is still very, very sick. His left lung is partially collapsed from all the pressure of his extended belly. He is currently intubated and on the ventilator. He requires an epi infusion to keep his blood pressure up.

Per Dr. Loveland and Dr. Dance (the inpatient pediatrician), he is to stay on the ventilator for 2 or so days and then try extubating. He will be in ICU for around 4 days and then hopefully return to med-surg.

Neo Paul Philisiwe is a brave fighter, and he is going to keep fighting and heal from all of this (the name Philisiwe means “healed”). His body was designed to function properly and is destined for health and prosperity with a beautiful life ahead.

We are asking for financial help as we only adopted him 3 months ago, on Nov 5. He is no longer on Medicaid in South Africa and not yet on our U.S. health insurance. Everything is to be paid out of pocket.

We are asking for financial help to pay both medical needs & additional costs to remain in South Africa until Neo is able to fly back to the States.

At the moment, we have received the following invoices:

Pending/anticipated invoices/costs include:

Thank you all for the overwhelming flood of love and support; people from middle/high school days to coworkers from the early 2000s, all over Canada and the US to Morocco, South Africa, UK, Sweden, and France. We love you all!