For the past two days I have been writing about Mary. She is the mother of two sick children who has been homeless and living in a shelter for two months following an illegal eviction. Her sons William, age 10, and Matthew, age 13, suffer from a rare bone disorder called hereditary multiple exostoses.
HME is estimated to occur in 1 in 50,000 people.[1] It is characterized by the growth of cartilage-capped benign bone tumours around areas of active bone growth, particularly the metaphysis of the long bones. HME can lead to the shortening and bowing of bones; affected individuals often have a short stature.
For children with this disorder, growing pains are like torture as the tumors break through the surface of the bone. The tumors can also compress nerves and blood vessels causing other problems.
(more after the squiggle)
Mary's son William recently underwent major surgery to remove bone tumors and re-position his femur and knee. According to Mary, during the five hour surgery:
They cleaned up an exostosis in his hip, broke the top of the femur in order to angle it correctly, and then put everything back together properly. They had been worried that the pelvic bone would need some work as well, but it settled into the proper position as soon as everything else was right. Then on his knee they removed two exostoses and put in plates to encourage the joint to grow in a manner that will hopefully allow the joint to extend completely after a few months to a year of growth.
Five days later they returned to the shelter, but William quickly developed a serious infection. Mary was forced to rush him from Fargo to the emergency room in St. Paul in the middle of the night. William was re-admitted and spent three days on IV antibiotics before he was released again. Mary discovered that the shelter was the source of the infection and was advised to not return, which left her in a very difficult position.
Mary was completely broke and returning to the shelter seemed to be the only option, but doing so would put her son's health at further risk.
When her friends discovered what was happening, they organized a fundraiser. I wrote a couple of articles about Mary here and also created a fundraising page. At the same time, Mary began selling off all of her possession that had previously been held in a storage unit. Through these efforts Mary has come up with enough funds to get through three weeks in a hotel near the hospital in St. Paul.
Mary still needs some help, though. She plans to move to Oregon once William's treatment has finished, but that won't be for another six weeks.
Originally I had posted Mary's paypal address and requested donations be sent there. After discussing fundraising strategies with Nurse Kelly, however, I have setup a new page at giveforward.com.
Support for Mary
What I am requesting right now is the power of the community. If you can share Mary's page on Facebook and Twitter maybe we can raise enough to bridge the gap between what she has now and what she needs. Once she gets to Oregon everything will settle down. She already has a place to live and a job offer there. She just needs to make it through William's treatment first.