My Nephew Nick was Diagnosed with AFM (Acute Flaccid Myelitis) which is identical to Polio- just not caused by the Polio Virus. Nick was paralyzed in his left arm. Only 30-50 children were diagnosed with AFM in 2022. The only treatment was PT and OT which Nick attended 4-6 times a week for almost a year. Nick then received Nerve transfer surgery out of state in OH. Nick was the first patient with AFM to ever undergo this surgery before 1 year of onset and he may be the first AFM/Polio patient in the history of the world to ever fully recover. Only 4 surgeons in the US perform this type of surgery. However, the surgeon that Nick had, also developed what is called a decompression surgery. Essentially this 'un-traps' the nerve. Nerves have an expire date, and getting the surgery soon after onset was critical for Nick's recovery. The surgon also 'borrowed' a nerve from Nick's tricep and added it to his deltoid.

Nick is doing amazing and now has a full range of motion and just got discharged from his PT and OT. I created this fundraiser to help my sister out, as she has incurred a lot of debt from the medical bills. Nick had to stay in the hospital for a week when he was initially diagnosed, and received IVIG treatments. Nick had to have multiple follow up appts and multiple PT/OT sessions. Insurance only covered a small portion of the hundreds of PT/OT sessions, and Nick also had to fly out of state three times (twice for a meeting with the surgeon and once for the actual surgery) and my sister incurred flight costs, rental cars, hotel costs and more. I'm looking to help her out financially and raise some money to help her with the backlog of credit card debt she incurred from these costs.

I am so grateful for Nick's recovery and for all the support he had through this journey and the amazing medical team/staff that jumped in to help him with this very rare condition. If you can, please contribute whatever you can to help my sister get back on her feet, as she did everything she could to ensure Nick got the very best care he could have possibly received.