http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20100617/GPG0101/6170611/1207&located=rss
Girl's death inspiration for organization to bring joy to sick children.
By Ilissa Gilmore
gilmore@greenbaypressgazette.com
June 17, 2010
SUAMICO —
Micki and Michael Klein's daughter died from an inoperable brain tumor two years ago, but Mariah lives on through an organization that offers activities to hospitalized children.
In the kitchen of the Klein home, pages of their daughter's medical information line the walls, and her bedroom has been lovingly preserved. A Disney calendar on the wall shows August 2008.
"That's when time changed," Micki said.
Mariah's parents started Riah's Rainbow, a nonprofit organization that provides children in the hospital with materials such as crayons, markers and puzzles.
Mariah was diagnosed in 2007 with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, a pediatric brain tumor that affects 150 to 200 children each year. In and out of hospitals, Mariah would distract herself with coloring and drawing. Every item provided by Riah's Rainbow has a sticker with Mariah's face, her story and the organization's information.
"We want children and others to know about her and who she is," Micki said.
The Kleins have sent 100 to 200 materials each month since January 2009 to hospitals in Green Bay, Chicago, New York, Minnesota and Michigan.
Each hospital that receives materials either provided care to Mariah or her family knows a child who spent time there, Micki said.
Mariah's family eventually wants to get supplies to hospitals across the country.
The organization also receives money from grants and donations through fundraisers. Their Smiles for Miles fundraiser raised more than $4,000 — half of which will help buy gifts for hospitals and the rest will go toward supporting clinical trials by The Cure Starts Now Foundation, a nonprofit researching cures for the disease that killed Mariah.
Micki said the organization is growing and "gets better every year and reaches more kids."
"We need to get over our grief and it's a good way to do it — to see other kids happy," she said.CLICK for Baby Mariah's Caring Bridge entries...
Or click here for my own entries on Multiply about this wonderful family.
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Click for Riah's Rainbow Website:
"Our mission is to be able to give local hospitals new coloring books, crayons, markers, colored pencils, craft items, etc. to pediatric patients. Each time they visit they will receive a new coloring book & box of crayons to take home with them. We will also offer alternatives such as puzzles, project bags, or paints. Often times, cancer patients are offered "community" craft items. With comprised immune systems, the threat is always there that the child may develop an illness. Riah's Rainbow eliminates that fear for parents.
To provide further assistance, it is our hope that in the future we will be able to provide parents with the resources to take their children out for a day adventure...maybe to the zoo, or dinner and a movie for the whole family."
XOXO
Me
Photo from above article.
Caption reads: "Micki Klein of Suamico and her daughter, Morgan, 8, sit in the bedroom of Mariah, Micki's daughter who died Aug. 31, 2008, of a rare and inoperable brain tumor. Since Mariah's death, the Klein family has started Riah's Rainbow, a program that gives art supplies to pediatric hospital patients."(M.P. King/Press-Gazette)
I bet she loved that dress :-) I hope she has lots of things with her now as well as love from everyone who visits her page
ReplyDeleteFrom my inbox yesterday, Micki writes: Pray for my cousin Alex
ReplyDelete"Alex is an 8 year old boy who unfortunately got the infection called MRSA from a scratch on his knee.
He has under-gone two surgeries
so far. He started at Aurora Hospital where they tried to give him their
best. But their best just wasn't enough. They rushed him to Children's
Hospital in Milwaukee just Tuesday June 15th. He had another spot of
MRSA in the same leg. They got it out right away. He also had/has a blood clot
and they are giving him blood thinners for that. The doctors there are giving him
the best care and treatment possible. To make his recovery stronger and faster
I believer that we can pray, and pray and pray, as hard and as often as possible,
to speed up his recovery and miraculously get him better.
All we need is your help to pray. So send this on to all your contacts, even if they
are not religious at all, all we need is best wishes and prayers from the most
people as possible!
Please forward on this email as much as possible! This is the mass prayer email for
Alex Delebreau. No matter if this comes in on a computer or Cell phone, FORWARD IT!
And we thank you in advance for all the prayers. And to Keith and Jenny, the parents,
we will do anything we can. All the prayers in the world are for Alex right now. "
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Today to have received the following:
" ... Here is Alex's Caringbridge site, if you'd like to follow his updates, leave some kind words or pray for his recovery."
Micki
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Visit the CaringBridge website by clicking the link below.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/alexdelebreau
When you visit you'll be asked to log in, because I've chosen to keep the site private.
Show your support for Alex
* Visit and keep up to date.
* Leave a message in the guestbook.
* Receive e-mail notifications when the journal is updated.
Thank you.
Jenifer
CaringBridge is a free, nonprofit web service that connects family and friends to share information, love and support during a serious health event, care and recovery. Feel free to contact CaringBridge if you have any questions about using the site or need assistance.
******
Prayers are needed right now.
XOXO
Me
More specifically this case is CA-MRSA
Mortality/Morbidity
ReplyDeleteMajor complications occur in one third of all episodes of peripheral septic phlebitis caused by percutaneously inserted catheters.
* Complications include septic shock, sustained or refractory sepsis, suppurative thrombophlebitis, metastatic infection, endocarditis, and arteritis. Patients may die because of sepsis, and hospital stay is prolonged in the majority of cases.
* In critically ill patients, intravenous lines are responsible for about one quarter of the cases of nosocomial bloodstream infection, which has a mortality rate of 25% and costs $29,000 per survivor.
* Lemierre syndrome and intracranial septic thromboses are of special concern because the mortality rate is high even when appropriate treatment is initiated early. Of patients with Lemierre phlebitis, 20% eventually die despite prolonged intravenous antibiotic therapy. The mortality rate is even higher for patients with septic cavernous sinus or lateral sinus phlebitis.
Age
* Vulnerability to vascular infection is increased in neonates because of their undeveloped host defenses.
* Vulnerability is increased in elderly patients because of concomitant illnesses and a nonspecific age-related decline in immunopotency.
Clinical History
* Superficial septic phlebitis most often begins with a localized break in the skin, such as an intravenous catheter, a puncture wound, an insect bite, a phlebotomy attempt, or an intravenous injection. The initial site of infection often is apparent as an initially well-localized area of tenderness and erythema. The original portal of entry may become less obvious over time, as pain, tenderness, swelling, and redness spread along the entire course of the infected vessel.
o Intravenous drug abusers often have localized areas of cellulitis or even frank abscesses at the sites of injection.
o Local pain, swelling, and redness are apparent from the onset of infection, but systemic signs, such as fever and chills, occur only after the superficial phlebitis is well established.
* Septic phlebitis in the deep veins generally presents with systemic symptoms alone. Patients with catheter-associated deep system phlebitis often have no symptoms of pain or swelling at the site of a central venous catheter.
* Septic pelvic thrombophlebitis usually presents as a late complication of a recognized puerperal infection, such as postpartum endometritis, while puerperal ovarian vein thrombophlebitis presents in the first week of the puerperium, usually as lower quadrant pain that may masquerade as appendicitis and be identified correctly only at laparotomy.
Physical
* Local signs of phlebitis include the traditional cardinal signs of inflammation: calor, dolor, rubor, and tumor (heat, pain, redness, and swelling).
* Septic phlebitis sometimes can be confused with superficial thrombophlebitis that is not infected. Septic phlebitis must be assumed when a patient has cellulitis, abscess, a break in the skin, or fever and chills.
* Suppurative phlebitis is recognized when any amount of purulent material can be expressed from within or around the lumen of a vessel.
* Infection at a peripheral intravenous site usually is obvious because it presents as localized cellulitis with inflammation along the course of the vein, often with associated lymphangitis and regional lymphadenopathy.
* The inflamed superficial vein usually is identifiable and palpable as a red, tender cord.
* In contrast, central line septic phlebitis often is clinically occult because the infected thrombus is located in the region of the catheter tip and usually does not involve the site of skin puncture.
* If deep system blood flow is obstructed, extremity pain and edema are present, but, in most cases, the patient has only fever, chills, and positive blood culture results.
* The diagnosis of catheter-associated deep septic phlebitis usually is made by culturing the tip of the catheter itself. If the catheter cannot be withdrawn, cultures of blood take
Think this can't happen to you?
ReplyDeleteGuess again...
Here are some causes:
Any event producing cutaneous discontinuity (break in skin) predisposes the human organism to soft-tissue infections that may result in septic phlebitis.
* Abscesses
* Cellulitis
* Diverticulitis
* Endometritis
* Herpes simplex or herpes zoster
* Insect bites
* Intravenous drug abuse
* Local trauma (eg, lacerations, abrasions, "bites")
* Oropharyngitis
* Puncture wounds
* Salpingitis
* Varicose veins
* Venipuncture
* Venography
* Venous infusion catheters
From here http://ukpmc.ac.uk/classic/articlerender.cgi?artid=1729815 comes this article:
ReplyDeleteSeptic thrombophlebitis with acute osteomyelitis in adolescent children: a report of two cases and review of the literature
mmm Very sad, all of it Anna I was looking up this page this morning as we were watching a doco on it the other night http://hayleyspage.com/index.htm so many thing we people take for granted hey, we also don't often stop and think of all the children like Casey and yourself
ReplyDelete( Sick children living with an illness and their carers )
but you and others are out there in our communities every where :-(
You carers all out there doing a great, yet thankless job as the community is concerned because few don't get to see or know about it :-)
Mr. Lester
ReplyDeleteLoads of love is all you need, and the rest is easy.
Physically anyway...
I could not see myself doing anything else if I was paid to do so either- These chronic conditions and lifestyles quickly become a way of life.
Simply put, "You deal, or you lose."
I deal. Because I know that "LOVE" is chronic too.
XOXO
Me
I belong to a Children's Charity here in Olive Hill. It was started by the parents of a boy that lost his life to a gunshot wound. Gerad's deathe has never been solved. His parents Phil and Terri now raise monies for critically/terminally ill children to help make their lives a bit easier.
ReplyDeleteBless little Mariah's family.
Thank you Annie.
ReplyDeletePeople like you, and they, are angels on Earth.
XOXO
Me