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Benefits set for 5-year-old

A benefit auction and dinner will be held Feb. 25 at the Eagles Club and Pizza Hut will donate proceeds March 16 to raise money for 5-year-old Jayce Lodgepole, who has gastroenteropathy, a stomach and intestines disorder.

Because of longterm steroid use to fight that disorder, Jayce also has developed adrenal suppression, his mother, Elizabeth LodgePole said, and complications have led to several emergency room visits.

Jayce may be returning soon to Havre from Denver, where he has spent the last two weeks, but Elizabeth LodgePole said she’s expecting some hefty bills — just the two emergency flights that took Jayce from Havre to Kalispell and a flight from Kalispell to Denver are expected to be costly.

Jayce was taken to the emergency room early Jan. 9 for rapid breathing.

“He kept saying he couldn’t breathe,” a statement in an email from his aunt, Crystal Anderson, said. “An X-ray revealed his lungs looked ‘junky’ and he was started on an antibiotic. Over the next 11 days he went back and forth on feeling well.”

Jayce’s parents took him to the emergency room again Jan. 20, for the same reason. This time he was admitted for respiratory distress, the email said. Doctors later learned Jayce had pneumonia that didn’t respond to the antibiotic treatment and his platelet count was dropping.

He was flown to Kalispell where, in the early hours, he ended up with the first of many bloody noses. A feeding tube was put in Jayce Jan. 23, “as he couldn’t afford to lose any more nutrients,” his mother said.

Jayce was taken to Denver Jan. 26 because he needed irradiated blood, blood that’s been treated with radiation to prevent transfusion-related diseases.

Jayce had three blood transfusions, two IVIG infusions and numerous platelet transfusions within 10 days. He had a bone marrow biopsy to figure out why his platelet count continued to drop, and he didn’t respond to treatment Jan. 30.

Elizabeth LodgePole said Wednesday from Denver that Jayce was getting better. She said she was hopeful and thankful for all the community support through the ordeal. Doctors said it’s possible that Jayce may be released this week to come back home to Havre, she said.

The benefit and silent auction at the Eagles runs from 4 to 7 p.m. with chili, fry bread, salad and dessert for $7.

March 16, if people tell Pizza Hut employees they are donating to Jayce’s benefit, 20 percent of the amount of their purchase will go to his account.

 

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