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Friday, January 22, 2010

Applebee's Fundraiser For Local Special Needs Child


Joe,

I would like to invite you and your readers to a fundraiser tomorrow for my son, Isaac "Bubba Man" Campbell. Attached is the flyer for the event and you can read about Isaac at http://www.bubbamancan.com/ The event is a Flapjack Fundraiser at Applebee's in Salisbury from 8:00 am - 10:00 am. Applebee's will be serving a pancake and sausage breakfast and we will also have raffles and a 50/50. Tickets can be bought at the door for $6.00

The fundraiser is part of an effort to raise money for Isaac's Intensive Feeding Program at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. For more information on the program, visit http://www.kennedykrieger.org/kki_cp.jsp?pid=1464

Isaac is a special needs child who has struggled since birth. He was born 2 months early at PRMC with complications and soon after was flown to Children's National Medical Center where he spent his first month. His first year of life was day by day with nobody knowing what to expect. He was fed through a NG tube which goes up the nose and into the stomach and is used to pump fluids into him. Since the NG tube is inserted through the nose and down the esophagus, it caused him pain and discomfort. He now associates this pain coupled with reflux (which is very common in premature babies) with eating and refuses all food by mouth. After being failure to thrive and showing basically no signs of growth, they finally put a G-Tube in him. If you are not familiar, a G-Tube is kind of like a piercing through the stomach which allows fluids to be pumped into him. Once he got the G-Tube, he was a different child. I mean, he immediately began gaining weight and started to develop physically and mentally. At this point, Isaac is severely developmentally delayed due to an unknown/unclassified genetic and/or neurological disorder.

Our goal is simply to teach our son to eat by mouth and eventually remove the G-Tube. He has been accepted to the program which has a very high success rate because they deny children who they don't think they can help. All his doctors and therapists are very optimistic and the general consensus is that he will be a success story. Our insurance, CIGNA will not pay for Intensive Feeding Programs because they consider them experimental and unproven even though their own research showed total success in 9 out of 12 children sampled. For more information on CIGNA's position, see http://www.cigna.com/customer_care/healthcare_professional/coverage_positions/medical/mm_0422_coveragepositioncriteria_pediatric_intensive_feeding_programs.pdf The costs of the program are estimated to be $40,000 - $60,000 for out patient treatment for 6-8 weeks.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could come, and I would be in your debt if you could post this on your blog to help us spread the word

Best Regards,
Jason S. Campbell

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to put in a word for Applebee's. I am also the father of a special needs child. My son has autism and he spent a year in a residential treatment facility in Norfolk, VA. At Christmas time, the local Applebee's restaurants in the Norfolk and VA. Beach area purchased Christmas gifts for all the boys in my son's unit. It was an act of generosity the likes of which I have never witnessed before. The boys were asked to make up a wish list and they were given everything on their lists. Many of these boys would have received little or nothing due to lack of family resources. I patronize Applebee's and I just would like to encourage anyone who appreciates a socially concious company which cares about kids to do the same.

Anonymous said...

I have said this before. We need health care reform in this country. What these insurance companies are doing to families is criminal. CIGNA is NOT medical assistance or medicaid. This type of insurance is offerred by an employer for an employee. Also, why is the hospital charging suching a inflated charge ($40,000 -$60,000). These insurance companies are run by monsters. I am sure his family is very pleased with their current healthcare. The same type of crap has happened to Brooke Mumford's family.