The cost of preemies

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Some would say 11-month-old Yeshua Michael Lynch is fragile. But his parents call him a fighter.

He was born Jan. 23, 14 weeks early, and has since survived heart surgery and numerous other life-threatening complications. He's spent the majority of his life on a ventilator in hospitals including Charleston Area Medical Center's Women and Children's, Ruby Memorial in Morgantown and Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

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Yeshua's medical condition has taken a toll on the family mentally and financially.

As the children's grades plummeted, medical bills skyrocketed.

"Bills come every day," Johnson said. "One medical flight was more than $30,000 and he's taken four of them."

http://www.dailymail.com/News/Kanawha/200812170236

Good thing they can depend on West Virginia "insurance".


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Where is your heart, Sammy?

Even if it does reduce the aid available to 100 other poor kids, we need to do everything to make sure this little boy survives, even if he likely will never reach adolescence and will spend his short life hooked to machines.

Even if it hurts the other children in the family in the form of denied attention, no set routine and falling grades.

It would be wrong to let nature take its course.

I am going to get so flamed...

TerryRC wrote:Where is your heart, Sammy?

Even if it does reduce the aid available to 100 other poor kids, we need to do everything to make sure this little boy survives, even if he likely will never reach adolescence and will spend his short life hooked to machines.

Even if it hurts the other children in the family in the form of denied attention, no set routine and falling grades.

It would be wrong to let nature take its course.

I am going to get so flamed...

You probably will, though not by me.

But I do struggle with this one. Ms. Ziggy and I came close to having this dilemma when our second child was born- several weeks prematurely. Fortunately he overcame his under-developed lungs and diaphragm related problems before noticable neuorological damage occured. But I still think about how different all out lives in the family would have been different had he been born even just a couple weeks sooner.