GUEST POST WITH AUTHOR, LEANNE HERRERA

Today's guest post is dedicated to a serious cause. One of my newest Authors, Leanne Herrera has a granddaughter with severe Cerebral Palsy and is currently in ICU. Leanne has recently released her first book through GMTA and 75% of all proceeds go toward helping her granddaughter get the care she needs. Below is a story about this beautiful little 2 year old and the life she has had thus far.

Thank you for reading.

Kitty Bullard / GMTA Independent Publishing

This is a story about my granddaughter.

When my oldest was nearly 17 years old she got pregnant. Her pregnancy was not easy. During a routine ultrasound they discovered that there was something wrong with the baby. My daughter was 20 weeks pregnant and the baby had a stroke. They took her in for a amnio and could not understand what the problem was, but gave the baby her mothers platelet’s in hopes that it would help the stroke stop. A few weeks later, they did another ultrasound and discovered that she had now had 3 strokes. By the time my daughter was 37 weeks pregnant, the baby had, had so many strokes they had lost count. They also discovered that my daughters skin could not stretch anymore without fear of it tearing and decided to induce.

Sabrina was born September 8th 2010. The doctors had told us to prepare her funeral, because they feared she would not live beyond birth and that if she did she would be without emotions or any abilities at all. She came out screaming.

By the time she was 2 months old she had been through 2 brain surgeries because she has hydrocephalus. She was on medication for seizures and was medicated for that. She has spent a lot of time with doctors and therapists over the last 23 months. Her list of illnesses is long. She has; hydrocephalus, epilepsy, failure to thrive, tremors, cerebral palsy, chronic UTI’s, Mthfr, and severe reflux.

In June of 2012, we awoke to a blue Sabrina. She was not able to breathe on her own. She was taken to the emergency room and they placed her on a respirator. On mother’s they asked my daughter how she felt about pulling the plug on Sabrina. It was the worst mother’s day ever to say the least. After a few weeks of being in the hospital, she was able to come home. She is still on a machine called a bpap at night but is on room air during the day.

She now has new accessories that have to be taken everywhere she goes. She has a portable oxygen machine, a breathing treatment machine, a suction machine, and a portable bpap machine. They have to go everywhere with her. This makes it hard on my daughter who is not even 5 feet tall. If you can imagine her trying to cart around all of that equipment around in a regular stroller.

We have discussed her needs with a therapist and have come to the conclusion that we just cannot afford all the things that Sabrina needs even with Medicaid’s help. We are looking into several organizations that are willing to help but even they cannot afford to help us completely. My daughter is still in school and only gets SSD for Sabrina.

Currently Sabrina is in respiratory failure and decisions on behalf of the family have to be made regarding her welfare. Please keep us in your prayers.

Leanne Herrera (The Grandmother) is a new GMTA Author with a book currently released called “Mirror Bound” 75% of the proceeds for all purchased copies of this book will be going to the fund for Sabrina to help her get the care she needs. You can purchase on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Bound-ebook/dp/B008W5BUS6/ref=sr_1_2?i...

So we need your help please. If you can help in anyway, even just to leave a message you can leave one on her face book page at https://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Sabrina-Jean-Marie-Herrera/128524133888743 or you can donate to her through paypal at https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webs...gif%3aNonHosted you can also visit her site at http://www.tohelpsabrina.org/

Thank you
Leanne Herrera