A Pain Free Life

Words of thanks and gratitude cannot express the hope and excitement we are experiencing with Dayton’s treatment and recovery since coming to Southern California and the UCLA medical community. Dayton has a long way to go, but has been able to leave the hospital for the first time in 6 weeks and work on recuperating a bit in a home setting. We will be going to several specialists this week to continue and monitor the treatments started by the teams while he was an inpatient. Hope is the best thing to see in Dayton’s expression and to hear him laugh and have glimmers of his sense of humor is absolutely AMAZING! Without the generosity of friends and “strangers”, we would not be here on this amazing quest for Dayton’s health and recovery. Thank you, Everyone, and know that I am accounting for every penny and will be transparent with all spending. Peace!

This is the best yet!!!!! 

Dayton arrived at the UCLA Medical center last night and (because of his insurance issues) had to be admitted through the ER. His mom, Holly texted an update:

Very crowded here. This ER is huge. He’s on a bed in a hallway so far. No docs yet but steps closer!

About an hour and a half later, she updated us with this:

We saw a doctor that works at LA Children’s Hospital with sickle cell kids. He stepped up to get things rolling here. Wish him luck on getting an IV started. His nurse is a down-home southern guy, very nice and compassionate. Promised not to go for his neck and won’t just stick for stickings sake. Nice to hear.

I don’t know if we talked about this publicly before, but Dayton’s had trouble in the past with IVs. Because of his condition, his veins aren’t visible or strong enough to hold an IV. In Denver they had to go through his neck, which, as you can imagine, was not only painful, but he could actually TASTE everything they put in the IV. It was a nightmare. 

UCLA finally admitted him and Holly spent the night at the hospital with him. Here’s her update from this morning:

Best breakfast after a long night recliner-surfing with little sleep . Me…not Dayton. Since there are no beds upstairs we are in a larger ER room until there is a a place for him.  Staff here is very helpful and so pretty! I think we might really be on a movie set.  I’m going to go look for hair and makeup and then swing by wardrobe :-)  We are waiting for the docs to appear in person, but word is DAYTON MAY BE ABLE TO BE RELEASED later today!!!!  

Uh…yeah! THAT was the biggest shock of all. What a difference 6,000 ft in altitude and ONE sickle cell expert can make! He went from a month stay in the hospital, unable to leave his bed or be transported elsewhere to a possible release?? A true and honest miracle.

Here is the latest:

So release may be tomorrow!! The medical team just came in - they’re awesome - They’re getting his own team down here and getting a Pulmonology work up! Re: Pain management…they were concerned about how sedated he is on Dilaudid so they’re just going to use orals. No need for PICC line! YAY!!!  I’m SO glad he is HERE!!! Everyone is so interested and excited about getting him care!!  Thank you, EVERYBODY!!!

Dayton’s previous PICC line burst, so to have to give him another would be extremely painful. This was yet another update with great news! The progress he’s already made since arriving at UCLA was not even a hope for his future a few days ago. I know we say it over and over, but THANK YOU so much to everyone who has helped and is continuing to help with Dayton’s treatment. 

And a special thanks to the doctors, nurses and staff at UCLA Medical Center for being Dayton’s very own angels! 

If you would like to help Dayton on his journey to a pain free life, please share, reblog, retweet and/or visit http://www.gofundme.com/helpdaytonfightsicklecell

Dayton’s cousin Kelly has been friends with actor Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) for years and when she asked him to help spread the word about Dayton’s war against sickle cell disease, he stepped up. Without hesitation, Aaron tweeted this:

Almost immediately, his fans rushed to GoFundMe and helped us reach the first goal we needed to hit to be able to afford to transport Dayton to UCLA Medical Center. 

We would also like to say a massive THANK YOU to Aaron’s fans for their support and continued contributions. Aaron is such a fantastic person, has the biggest heart and the minute we can figure out how to thank him properly, we will do it. In the meantime, if you’re not watching Breaking Bad (wtf is wrong with you?) get to it! And please support everything he does. He’s a terrific actor and deserves it anyway. Thanks again, Aaron…you are the man! You can follow Aaron on Twitter here. 

If you’d like to help Dayton on his journey to a pain free life, please share, reblog, retweet and/or visit http://www.gofundme.com/HelpDaytonFightSickleCell.