Five-year-old Brock was a “beautiful, chubby baby,” according to his mom, Emily. But once he transitioned off formula, he couldn’t tolerate solid foods and wasn’t gaining weight.
“He kept growing taller but getting thinner and thinner,” said Emily.
Doctors in Brock’s rural Illinois hometown were stumped, so the family started taking him to nearby St. Louis for treatment. Emily said that while this helped, to a degree, “we just reached a plateau where things kept getting worse and worse.”
“We wanted to get a comprehensive second opinion just to see if there was something we could do to make his daily quality of life better,” she said.
Last year, Wings of Hope flew Brock and Emily seven times roundtrip to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
While Mayo hasn’t yet found a definitive reason for Brock’s symptoms, they have helped him gain weight by surgically implanting a gastrostomy tube and streamlined his medications through comprehensive testing.
“They were able to do so many tests so quickly,” said Emily. “One test, when I first reached out to Mayo, we were able to get that test three weeks later. In St. Louis, it would have taken five or six months just to get that test scheduled and complete and another five to six weeks to get the results.”
When your child is not thriving, finding fast solutions is critical.
“By being able to go to Mayo, we were able to speed up the timeline for improving his daily quality of life,” said Emily. “They really have increased his daily functionality and overall happiness.”
Flying with Wings of Hope saved Brock and Emily a nine-hour one way drive to Mayo, which Emily would have had to make solo while her husband was at home with their other three children.
“It’s mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting being the only caregiver for him while we were at Mayo,” she said. “To be able to fly and then just drive an hour home, instead of a nine-hour drive, was so nice.”
Besides alleviating the cost of flying commercially to the Mayo Clinic, flying with Wings of Hope allowed Emily to easily bring along all of Brock’s medications and food supplies.
“Even before he had a g-tube, he was on a soft, mashable diet — so lots of food pouches and formulas which are really hard to take through TSA,” she said. “This way, I was able to pack whatever I needed and have it with me instead of in a checked bag.”
As for Brock, he likes flying — especially when it gets a little choppy.
“He likes the turbulence,” said Emily. “Not that we ran into much, but he was like ‘ooh it’s like a rollercoaster. Again!’”