Rainbow Families Foundation Newsletter - May 2003

May 2003

I am very tired from waking up at 6AM yesterday and going to Santo Domingo. We returned after 1AM last night. This morning I had to wake up early once again to meet someone about a donation. They said they will make a deposit in the bank tomorrow so I will have to check the account. Good to hear from you and be able to get on line. This is the first time in quite a while. So many things have been happening and I have not had too much time for myself. I am paler than any other tourist here and look like I just arrived. Jose Antonio was in the hospital for 17 days on nutrition through the feeding tube to build his iron and protein since home feeding was not working. His mother has been with him the entire time. I take his father for the day when I go to Santo Domingo but last Monday his father stayed and came back to Puerto Plata with me yesterday. Last week Monday the doctor said he was ready for surgery and said we have to transfer him to another hospital since the hospital he was is in did not have a ventilator in the event he would stop breathing during the surgery. So, Grimaldz and I went to Santo Domingo on Monday to make this move. His surgery was Wednesday, lasted 7 hours and went well. The doctor used part of his large intestine rather than the stomach. Jose Antonio was in intensive care for three days. His father was a basket case because he did not understand why Jose Antonio was just laying there unconscious and not talking. This past Saturday he came out of intensive care and in a regular room. He is continuing to improve but is not out of danger. Yesterday we transferred the family back to the other hospital which is less expensive. The doctor will order a radiography on Thursday, 2 days, with liquid barium to learn if the transplant worked. If so, Jose Antonio will begin to eat soft foods on Friday. He still has the feeding tube and receiving the same nutrition called PediaSure as before. I think I told you before it is made in Columbus, Ohio. If everything continues to go well he will get to come home in 7 to10 days. My plan is to bring the family back home in the same way I took them to Santo Domingo and then shortly thereafter return home. It has been a long haul and a lot of different things happening but I am so happy that things are going well for him. The fund raising has been up and down. Businesses, policitans and others have promised to donate and then when I ask for the money I get many excuses. It has been very frustrating. The Auyuntamiento, basically like our city councils, have been saying they will donate 20,000 pesos since mid-December. It has to be approved by the council and they did not have their january meeting until last week. The two council members who put the item on the agenda did not have enough information for the other members and deferred the item until the next meeting which is Friday, this week at 10AM. I will be there to present the case and hope someone can go to interpret. One man deposited 30,000 pesos in the account and the check bounced. After one week of going to his house and asking for the money I met him at his bank and he gave me the check and I cashed it on the spot. He received donations from others and donated the money by his personal check. He said one person who wrote him a check for 10,000 pesos was not good and caused his check to bounce. This check I had to deposit in the second hospital where the surgery was done. The family has no idea what so many people are doing to help them.