Central Texas communities quickly ramped up support for a family fighting a tough battle more than 1,000 miles away from home

WEST, Texas (KWTX) – Central Texas communities began arranging fundraisers and donations on Thanksgiving Day, hours after listening to a West center schooler was rushed to a hospital for an an infection over 1,000 miles away from house.

Nikki Altieri and her daughter, Daytyn, traveled from West to Florida Tuesday to go to household that they hadn’t seen in 12 years. Throughout their travels, she observed Dayton beginning displaying uncommon however acquainted signs.

“We obtained right here [Florida] about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, had dinner, put her to mattress, and I couldn’t get her oxygen stage up,” Altieri stated. “I had her on the max that I may give, and he or she simply wasn’t tolerating that properly.”

That’s when Altieri introduced Daytyn to the native hospital the place she stopped respiration till docs intubated her. Then, they transported Daytyn to a hospital in Orlando, about 300 hundred miles away.

“We’ve carried out a bunch of assessments,” Altieri stated. “She’s nonetheless incubated, she’s nonetheless underneath a number of sedation. They’d her on a paralytic [powerful muscle relaxer] for some time as a result of she was shifting, and so they needed to do a bronchoscopy.”

Altieri stated she continues to be intubated and underneath heavy sedatives; nonetheless, she is within the strategy of therapeutic.

Daytyn is sadly not new to diseases. She was identified with a genetic dysfunction and epilepsy when she was very younger, inflicting a weak immune system.

“She has had pneumonia 12 instances on this final 12 months, so she will get it rather a lot,” Altieri stated. “However, this one simply sort of sadly obtained her a little bit more durable than most.”

A well being scare much like this additionally occurred in 2016 when a minor sickness was pneumonia. Daytyn was hospitalized for over 4 months at Baylor, Scott & White McLane Youngsters’s Hospital in Temple, about an hour from West.

Now, Altieri and Daytyn are caught in Florida, about 16 hours away from house, and Altieri doesn’t know when they may have the ability to return.

Despite the fact that the neighborhood is much away from the West residents, they began planning fundraisers and donations.

“It was wonderful the quantity of people that simply have been like, ‘Okay, properly, you realize, none of us are in Florida, none of us are even shut…what will we do right here?’” Altieri’s shut buddy and fundraiser organizer, Lara Lmaak, stated. “A variety of us have been like, ‘let’s begin this fundraiser.’ We all know, with regards to them, the primary and most essential factor is, ‘let’s pull one thing collectively, let’s get them comfy the place they’re.”

Lamaak can be Daytyn’s trainer at West Center College, who has know her since she was two years outdated.

“Daytyn is the sort of individual, like, whenever you meet her, she’s going to connect herself to one thing in you,” Lamaak stated. “There’s something about that lady that she’s going to make you smile, she’s going to make you snigger, and he or she has carried out that from the smallest age.”

Lamaak would go to Daytyn and Altieri on the hospital in the course of the earlier scare in 2016, and, when she heard the information about Daytyn’s situation, she was devastated and unable to consolation them on this tough time.

“It was coronary heart wrenching,” Lamaak stated. “We have been headed to my mother and father, and I pulled the automotive over…and I’m like, ‘my lady’s within the hospital.’”

That’s when Lamaak in addition to different associates and neighbors of Altieri from West, McGregor, Robinson and Austin obtained collectively to kind the Fb group–#Daytynstrong’s Waffles And Extra! They created a web based public sale, gathering donations from native companies. In addition they shared Daytyn’s situation with neighborhood members and posted methods for them to donate.

The hashtag—”Daytyn Robust” is acquainted to Central Texans. They created it when Daytyn was within the hospital 6 years in the past for over 4 months. Their purpose was to lift funds but additionally to lift consciousness about epilepsy.

Lamaak stated seizure consciousness is a giant deal as a result of these surrounding an individual having a seizure must know easy methods to reply and assist her or him.

Each Lamaak and Altieri hopes fundraisers and help like this may even assist households not really feel alone if they’re battling related problems.

“We wish households to know that we’ve teams and other people can attain out to individuals, and so they’re not alone,” Altieri stated. “That was one in every of my greatest issues each time I discovered in regards to the dysfunction is I needed different households to know, like, we’re not alone.”

Daytyn has made an influence on many individuals all through her younger life, residing her hashtag each single day.

“’Daytyn Robust’ isn’t a press release…It isn’t a hashtag…It’s a means for all of us to do not forget that this baby has taught us all various things…completely different steps all through life,” Lamaak stated.

Because the begin, Lamaak stated they’ve already acquired a number of donations from native companies, together with T-shirts, reward playing cards, totes and extra. They’re doing a waffle for gadgets. Folks should purchase spots within the public sale, and winners are chosen randomly.

As of Monday morning, Altieri stated the neighborhood has already raised about $3,000 and counting.

“We’ve an enormous military of prayers, and I would like everyone to know that life could be laborious, however she’s sturdy,” she stated. “If she will get via something, all of the stuff that she has gone via through the years, then there’s hope on the market and you may get via no matter you’re coping with.”

There are a number of methods to donate, together with Money App–$nikkialtieri– and Venmo–@nikkialtieri. There are additionally #daytynstrong t-shirts for $20, and people can e mail daytynstrong@gmail.com.

All donations will go to medical bills and transportation for Daytyn and Altieri.

“I would like her to be a hero for everyone, and I undoubtedly need her to have the ability to contact individuals’s lives,” Altieri stated. “She’s a tremendous child, and I do know she’ll make it, however we undoubtedly want prayers.”

Altieri hopes Daytyn will have the ability to return again to high school and her favourite actions quickly, and, for now, she hopes Daytyn will get properly sufficient to be transported again to Texas.

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