2-year-old needs help to access life saving surgery
Tonight a Belize district family is hoping the public will be generous in helping their two year old child travel abroad for urgent medical care. Because as News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports, since birth the little girl has never known a normal life.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
On December eighth 2004, Errollynn Tillett was born with defect of the intestine that required multi-surgeries. Doctors assured her family that within a year she would be a normal toddler, but since then complications to her condition have caused more than nine inches of her intestine to protrude from her abdomen.
Claudette Haylock, Mother
“She has her intestine hanging out and through the other side of the hole, that’s where she stool.”
Errollynn is the ninth of ten children born to Burrell Boom resident Claudette Haylock.
Janelle Chanona
“What does Errollynn say to you about what’s happening to her?”
Claudette Haylock
“Errollynn doesn’t talk. She only says about five or six words from the time she started to walk. When I would know you that she needs to change is because—sometimes we don’t know because we have clothes on her and sometimes she take it off. But when she is really in pain, she takes her head and bangs it on the bed head or the cement floor or wherever she sits, it doesn’t matter. If she’s sitting her right now and it’s itching her she just bangs her head wherever she is.”
Haylock’s efforts over the last two years to help her child live a normal life have been successful. On March twelfth, Errollynn is scheduled to leave Belize bound for the International Hospital for Children in Richmond, Virginia. But tonight the little girl needs your financial assistance.
Claudette Haylock
“One day when I went to church, I met one of the priests and he told me the same thing, he said, this is just a test. God puts you through tests you know, to know how strong you are. And if you are strong you’ll survive this. So I said, okay, I’ll prove I’m strong, so I started to collect for Errollynn.”
“We need a little more than four thousand dollars more because we covered the plane ticket and almost half of the fee for the medication. But we need to get the money for the nurse and the next half for the medication.”
“I have an account at the Belize Bank and I can’t touch that money unless I take my plane ticket and my passport with the visa in it, then I can touch that money because that’s the arrangement I made at the bank. So there’s no way any money can come out of the account unless I’m leaving the country.”
If you would like to help Errollynn you can make a deposit to Belize Bank account number 229529 or contact her family in Burrell Boom. Janelle Chanona, reporting for News Five.
Claudette Haylock is being assisted by the I.C.H. country representative, Milagro Garel. You can contact the family at telephone numbers 621-1074 or 620-4217. Doctors believe Errollynn may be afflicted by Hirschsprung Disease, a genetic disorder caused by the absence of nerve cells in the wall of the bowel.
