Liam was born on July 14th of 2011.
He spent 90% of his first year in the hospital.
80% of his second year in the hospital.
50% of his third year and so on.
He spent the majority if his time at Valley Children's hospital in Madera, CA.
It's 65.6 miles from our front porch to the hospital.
Takes around an hour and 3 minutes to get there typically,
if you don't hit traffic.
The hospital is basically in the middle of nowhere.
To get to any fast food restaurants or the Target you have to get back onto the freeway.
Nothing is within walking distance.
It's a little over 12 miles to the nearest store (Target) if you need supplies.
I would drive to Target and stock up on foods that didn't have to be refrigerated.
Foods like:
Soups
Cup of Noodles
Peanut butter sandwich supplies
Ravioli
Chips
Crackers
Soda
Bottled ready to drink coffee
Granola bars
All cans had to be pop top and come in a bowl that could be microwaved.
I kept a bowl with me for soups.
These were the foods I lived off of for the majority of 4 years.
If I wanted clean clothes I had 2 options:
1) Have someone from Home bring them up when they come to visit.
2) Go to the nearest laundromat (16.9 miles away) and be gone from Liam for a few hours.
90% of the time when Liam was in the hospital he was vomiting.
Many times he would go through every blanket I packed him within 24 hours.
When a blanket and a treasured stuffed animal are the only things giving your baby enough comfort to sleep for a few minutes or stop crying for a few minutes,
and you have nothing clean left,
you stay can become way more stressful that it really needs to be.
There were a few times when he would have just vomited all over his last clean blanket,
he was in tears and I was close to tears.
I was rocking him when there was a knock on the door.
The door would slowly open and a smiling face popped their head in and said,
"I'll just leave this right here for you".
Then they walked out and closed the door behind them.
I walked over to the counter and found a new soft blanket sitting on the counter.
My jaw dropped.
I picked up that what felt like a treasure worth a million dollars and handed it to Liam.
He almost instantly stopped crying and I was able to rock him back to sleep.
As I watched him sleep,
I cried.
That blanket meant the world to us and we were given it because someone kind had donate a lot of blankets to children's for the kids.
Without that donation we would of had days with no sleep or comfort because it wasn't until 4 days later my husband was able to bring us clean blankets and clothes.
Hospital stays are extremely stressful and made worse when you have to eat junk,
don't have clean clothes are access to a laundromat.
I would pack Liam as many toys as I could but after a few days they would be boring for him.
I would have to ask my husband to bring us new toys every time he came to visit.
Being separated from family is also extremely difficult.
These stays are made a little easier when you have the items that comfort your child and clean clothes for yourself.
I hope that with this Christmas drive in memory of Liam that we will be able to offer that same comfort to these kids who are sick and stuck in a hospital during the holidays.
If we are even able to take these kids minds of being sick for just a few minutes,
than it will be worth it.
We are looking for donations of:
Stuffed animals
Blankets
teethers
books for all ages
toys for all ages
coloring books
crayons
journals
pens
backpacks and tote bags
and much more
Will you help us?
Contact us on our Facebook page Shooting for Liam
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