Single mom struggles to support family while child remains in distant hospital

[June 16, 2017]  "No parent should have to leave their child's bedside,” said Michelle Fields, Jewel King’s cousin. “Jewel has been left with the daily moral battle: Do I stay at my daughter's bedside or do I return to work just long enough to generate enough stability to keep our home?"

Jewel’s daughter Ella was delivered by emergency C-section Nov. 26, 2016 and underwent surgery the same day for spina bifida myelomeningocele. Two days later, she had surgery for a shunt to drain excess fluid from her brain. After 10 days in intensive care Ella went home with her mother and her four-year-old sister, Jemma, but that was short-lived. A rhinovirus infection put her back in the hospital where she then contracted the super-bug MRSA. She has been in hospitals in Springfield and St. Louis since Jan. 24 and undergone multiple surgical procedures, including Chiari decompression surgery at the base of her skull. She has a feeding tube and tracheotomy, and is on a ventilator.

Jewel has been trying to hold down her job in Lincoln while driving back and forth to the hospital from her home in Riverton, plus be present for her four-year-old daughter, Jemma. Twice Ella has coded while her mother was at work.

For the past two months, Ella has been in St. Louis at Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital.
For a while, Jewel’s mother Betsy King tag-teamed with her so someone was with Ella most of the time, but because of other family needs, Jewel is on her own again.

Traveling hundreds of miles each week and often staying in motels when the Ronald McDonald House has no beds, she has run through her meager savings as well as all paid-time-off benefits at Eaton Corp. She is grateful that while she still misses a lot of work so she can see doctors and be with Ella, her employer has been understanding.

Leaving Ella and knowing it will be days before she can see her again is excruciating.

“As a single mom, think of making that choice to work and pay your bills, or be in the hospital with your kid,” King said. “But if you’re at the hospital with your kid, then who’s going to pay your rent? Who’s going to pay your lights? Who’s going to pay your car payment? Because you have to have a car for a kid to come home in. You have to have a home for your kid to come to.”

“I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul,” she said of her mounting bills.

Recently, she was notified her electricity was going to be shut off, adding to her list another agency she needed to work with.

“That’s all I do every day on my lunch break: make phone calls,” King said.

Lately, it seems there’s no end to issues to address.

“I’m dealing with everything as it comes,” she said wearily.

So King’s friends are coming alongside her. One has created a GoFundMe page, and Fields and her husband Alex are also trying to raise funds.

“We are organizing a benefit to help ease the financial burden and also to show emotional support that a community really does come together in a desperate time of need,” Michelle Fields said.

They have lined up a day of food, music and entertainment to raise funds to ease King’s burden.

Jewel King hopes for the day she can bring Ella home, but has been waiting two months for home nursing care to be found. She, her mother and her aunt are ready to take on the task alone but the hospital won’t release Ella without qualified nurses to monitor her delicate condition closely.

SIDEBAR

Let’s Have a Hoot for Ella!

A benefit to help ease the financial burden and show emotional support for Jewel King and her daughters Ella and Jemma will be held Saturday, June 17, from noon until 5 p.m. at the Eagles Lodge, 1621 N. Kickapoo St., Lincoln. It is a family-friendly event with live performances from Emily Johnson and Ryan Parcelle. A pulled pork meal will be served for a fee and free fun includes face painting, and a bounce house donated by J&J jump and slide. Other activities include a dunk tank, cornhole games, raffles, a 50/50 drawing and bake sale.

Donations can also be made at www.gofundme.com/x3v2aw9s-single-mom-of-2.

Ella King was born with spina bifida and other medical complications. She has been in various hospitals most of her six months and still faces many medical and developmental challenges.

[Gaye Maxson]