About Crew
Crew was born on August 31, 2014 at 12:01 a.m. During pregnancy, and at birth, there were no health concerns. Crew was a healthy & happy newborn weighing in at 9lbs 8oz and 21″ long and was a blessing to his family (Scott, Mandy, Charlie, and Cooper) as a third beautiful boy. Everything seemed to be perfect.
However, during the postpartum stay, Mandy began noticing some things that just didn’t seem quite right. She knew something was going on but didn’t want to accept that Crew wasn’t anything other than perfect (which he was in every sense of the word). After an extended postpartum stay and a short stay in the NICU, Crew was sent home with a NG tube (feeding tube) due to silent aspiration. At the time, this was the only known health concern and a development that was initially tough to handle but news the family met head-on. Soon after, however, additional health concerns began to emerge and the complexity of supporting Crew’s development grew and grew.
During Crew’s life, he never received an overall unifying diagnosis. The family and teams of doctors and specialists tried everything they could to identify the basis of these complex health conditions and how best to treat Crew. Crew was a silent aspirator so he could not eat by mouth (NG tube, G tube, G/J tube) and suffered from severe and uncontrolled epilepsy, scoliosis, kyphosis, microcephaly, cortical visual impairment, severe GERD (which created bleeding ulcers throughout), chronic lung disease, torticollis, and various other developmental delays. Crew could not talk, walk, sit up on his own, or eat by mouth – But he could pull you in with his hands and not let go in a matter of seconds. 🙂
Just after his third birthday, Crew succumbed to his illnesses yet continues to make an impact in the community through The Crew’s Crew Foundation.
