Support Kerri and Araminta's Medical and Fire Recovery

On January 7, as the Price Katsuyama family escaped from the Eaton fire sweeping through our town, our hopes of having peace this year to recover from everything we survived last year were gone. Already reeling from the severe financial impact of a near-fatal pregnancy, long NICU stay, seven months of home nursing care, a list of more surgeries and intensive medical care, and our family’s income being reduced significantly as Neil has had to stay at home to take care of Kerri, a premature baby, and the other children, the fire pushed us over the edge and we need to ask for help.

While we are immensely lucky to have our rental home in the fire zone still standing and were only completely displaced for a month, the damage, losses, and clean-up costs have been staggering. We have received no assistance from FEMA, the Red Cross, or the SBA, and our renter’s insurance has provided little help. Many families in our neighborhood are struggling from the impact of the fire, and we feel guilty asking for help in the face of such widespread loss. However, we have the added misfortune of Kerri and Araminta’s medical crisis and continuing recovery and disability that have made our financial losses more severely crushing. As Kerri and Araminta continue to be treated by an ever-increasing team of specialists, Araminta requires more expensive testing and Kerri awaits further surgeries. Kerri remains incapacitated, bed-bound for the majority of the day and missing what should be a joyful time with her three small children. She has now spent two years in this state of total debility and has missed much of our two older children’s lives. Araminta’s medical challenges are worrying her doctors. At 15 months old, she remains the size of a 3 month old. The environmental impact of the fire and toxin exposure on a medically fragile preemie worry us endlessly, and as the thick ash that blanketed our home and all of our belongings tested positive for lead and other toxic contaminants, we are terrified that this continued exposure is further compromising her tiny body.

This has been a very hard year, and a hard prior year as well, for a family that had already endured so much calamity and hardship in the last seven years. We have avoided asking for help through it all, but it has become too much.

We are asking for help with crushing medical bills and fire recovery costs that have not been covered by insurance. Our needs far exceed the goal for this Go Fund Me but meeting this goal will help take some of the financial pressure away. Exceeding this goal will help to afford Araminta’s specialists so that she can grow and Kerri’s needed surgeries in the hopes that she will be able to chase after a healthy Araminta and her other two children again one day.

Thank you to everyone that has prayed for us through our very unlucky series of challenges over the years. It was our immense hope that our luck would change this year, but with your help, we hope now that we can recover and strengthen to meet these new challenges.