A Burns Lake salon has set up a fundraiser to help the Mackereth family through their many ups and downs.
The Mackereth family, a local family in Burns Lake, have been faced with many adversities in the past several years. Crystal and Dave Mackereth’s daughter Lena was born with cerebral palsy and has had to undergo countless surgeries, medical treatments and several specialists and doctor appointments in Vancouver. The Mackereths have been in the process of putting together money to get a wheelchair lift for Lena, to help her get in and out.
Just before Christmas, their seven year old son Tyson was diagnosed with focal cortical dysplasia, a form of epilepsy. Tyson will need to be medivac’d to BC Children’s Hospital to see a specialist to find out the next steps.
In a Facebook post, Crystal said that while she and Tyson were in the pediatric ward in Prince George, they were waiting for next steps that involved getting Tyson to the children’s hospital in Vancouver, hooking him up to an EEG for five full days and nights and then hopefully get some answers and plans for his treatment.
Tyson’s symptoms started suddenly and he has been having a few seizures every day ever since. At the moment, his seizures have been accompanied with him suddenly freezing mid-movement or mid-sentence for several seconds before he can move again.
“Last night while he was having a seizure this same thing happened and just before it started he said to me, ‘mom I think that freezing thing is going to start now”, she wrote.
“I can just hardly wait until they can tell us why these things are happening to him.”
In order to support the Mackereth family through this, Jennerations Salon set up a GoFundMe page last week.
At the time of going to press, $5,685 were raised of the $20,000 goal.
According to the GoFundMe page, “The goal is to raise enough money to help Crystal, Dave, Lena and Tyson with medical expenses that have and will accumulate over these next few months. The financial burden can be very stressful, Crystal and Dave need to focus 100 per cent of their energy on their children’s health.”
The salon will also be donating 10 per cent of their service and retail sales for their 10 year anniversary month, all through March.
“We also have an account setup at the bottle depot and it is called Mackereth family and people can go and make their donations towards this account,” said Jennifer Varga of the salon.
For those who don’t want to, or are not able to donate through the GoFundMe page, the salon will be accepting cash donations. People would also be able to send e-transfers directly to the family using this email - cblackwell@telus.net
“I never in a million years expected what you all are doing for us! I live in the best community and the best friends and family that I could ever want. I just can’t get over all the thoughts, prayers messages, food, the donations, all the love you guys are sending us. I just don’t know how we will ever thank you enough,” said Crystal in her post.
Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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