Happy St. Patrick's Day !

Mighty MikeyD  is still recovering and getting better and stronger. He continues to Improve which is a great thing especially after the traumatic brain injury no one knows how far back you can come with a brain injury.

Moya, Julia , Ciara and I had a family meeting with the Children's Specialized Hospital last week. Unfortunately they are not ready to release him form the Hospital yet. We were hoping they would start transitioning him back to Bayshore in April at least one day a week and then two days a week . The bad news is they said he will not be ready to be released from the hospital until next year meaning school year like next September or October . It is sad we were really hoping that MikeyD would get back to his friends and classmates at Bayshore who will all be graduating 8th grade so he could graduate  with his classmates. MikeyD left Bayshore for summer vacation that June of 6th grade  and never returned. Now it looks like he will not return to Bayshore untill next year and all is classmates will be gone. We are mourning the loss of the son, brother , grandson , nephew , cousin that we had before that tragic night and adjusting to the new MikeyD. It is really hard for all of us to watch his life as he knew it was taken away from him. MikeyD left us and was reborn he was first in a coma then he laid in bed like a baby in a crib couldn’t talk or eat was on a feeding tube and was paralyzed . MikeyD then had to learn how to walk and talk again just like a baby. He is now learning how to write again and struggles with short term memory problems. All this because of the amount of time he was down due to the response time and the lack of an AED.

We know that God  sent MikeyD back to us for a reason. One of them is to save the lives of other children and spare other families from the hardship we have suffered. I promised everyone when MikeyD was getting better my family will pay it forward and set out to help save other children. Right now the MikeyD fund is raising money with the help of Jim Dolan , Mark Peters and The Janet’s Fund to pay for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to come to Middletown and screen all kids for free to the families. Jim Dolan’s son Jimmy and Mark Peters are both Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) survivors who survived with no brain damage due to the response time with an AED. They have become great friends to MikeyD and my family. MikeyD , Jimmy and Mark share a special bond knowing what each has been through. Less than 5% of kids who suffer a SCA survive. Janet did not survive she was the same age as MikeyD when she suffered a SCA running laps at Cheerleading practice. Janet’s dad and mom Jim and Karen are the ones who got Janet’s law passed in New Jersey two weeks to the day after MikeyD went down. Part of Janets law all public and private schools K-12 must have an AED onsite at least 5 school employees to be certified in CPR/AED.

I would like to see a MikeyD law  pass legislation that all teams especially outdoors must have an AED and that all coaches be CPR/AED certified so we can save children’s lives every day and save other families from the unforgettable trauma and tragedy that SCA brings to the families of all these children. We have lost 4 children to SCA arrest in Monmouth county since MikeyD went down. We will be doing the CHOP screening on Saturday April 26^th at the St. Mary’s Mater Dei gym in Middletown for all Kids who can make it from anywhere you do not need to be from Middletown. We need your help in spreading the word to as many families as possible. Please let me know if you can help us if you know any nurses who can take Blood pressures that day it will be great. We also need admin people to check children in as well as  CPR/AED  instructors to do demonstrations.

I hope to have a link on the MikeyD blog next week where people can register their children on line and also a form that you can print and bring to the screening.Please mark your calendars now the screenings will be all day so if you have baseball practice in the morning you can come in the afternoon and vice versa. I ask you to join us in saving as many children’s lives as we  possibly can.

Please pass this link on to as many people as you can and every sports team you know via Email Facebook etc. the more children we screen the better.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILtoyif_FrU 

We Believe in Miracles !!!

Please keep praying and posting for MikeyD !!!