Leo’s GoFundMe had paid off most of it.
Over eight months, she had taken my son to six different emergency rooms in three states. Different names. Different hospitals. Each time, she told the doctors he had unexplained fevers, weight loss, and bruising. Each time, they ran blood tests, scans, and IV fluids.
My son had been through more needles in eight months than most kids get in a lifetime.
Because his grandmother needed photos.
The nurse who messaged me, Tasha, had worked the night shift at the Birmingham hospital. She remembered Leo because he kept asking for his mom.
“He said his mommy lived in Knoxville and didn’t know he was sick,” she told me later on the phone. “Grandma said you were a drug addict who’d lost custody. Something didn’t feel right. I searched his face online until I found the fundraiser.”
She found me through my profile picture. Leo and me at the Knoxville Zoo.
