Dylan was born in February 2005 after a normal pregnancy and start to labour.  As a result of his birth he was diagnosed with severe grade III HIE (hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy) and following that with Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy.

When he was 9 months old he had failure to thrive and started to feed through a Nasogastric Tube.  He had a few hospital admissions with pneumonia in the years that followed but was fairly robust and healthy.

In April 2009 he had very bad pneumonia and was intubated and airlifted to Monash Medical Centre ICU.  At some point during this admission it was found that he had nasty bacteria in his chest which is notoriously difficult to get rid of.

In May 2009 he had a PEG (feeding tube) inserted in his tummy – this was meant to make giving him food easier but he got very sick and had an abscess removed from his abdominal cavity and came very close to dying.

As a result of the bacteria and subsequent surgery he has been chronically ill with episodes of acute pain and infection requiring many admissions to hospital and at least 10 visits to ICU.

For the past 20 months he has also missed out on essential therapies like physio, occupational and speech therapy as he has been too unwell to travel regularly to early intervention or school.

In May 2010 Dylan spent another 13 days in ICU following a viral infection that left him with permanent lung damage and he now has oxygen 24 hours a day.

Dylan is an absolutely wonderful little boy and is full of giggles and smiles and loves to “chat” to people and especially likes to flirt with nurses in hospital!  He has some really special people in his life who all help to make him more comfortable and able to spend as much time at home with his big brother & sister as possible.

Dylan lives with his Mum and brother and sister who are 11 and 10 years old.

In December 2010 we launched an appeal to raise $5,000 to pay for some much needed in-home nursing services for Dylan.  After three weeks we topped up the public donations with some of the grant funding that we received from the Australian Unity Foundation and the target was reached. Dylan will now have access to $5,000 worth of in-home nursing care from the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital Homecare unit.

In September 2011 we received a call for help from a nurse at a Victorian Hospital. Dylan was in the final few days of his life. He was being cared for at home by his mum. A Victorian government program had been funding some in-home nursing care during the night so that mum could get some much needed sleep. She was exhausted and devastated – and had two other children to guide through this time too.

Dylan was now unconscious and sedated but was a fighter and had hung on longer than expected already. The government funding allowance for overnight nursing care had run out and no more nurses would be sent to help.

Dylan’s mum’s options were to take Dylan to hospital or to the Very Special Kids Hospice to see out his final days. But the family wanted him to spend his final days at home, surrounded by his family, and in the comforting surrounds of everything that was familiar to him. It’s not a lot to ask.

We were asked if we would fund nursing care so that he could stay at home, and so that mum could continue to be supported during this terrible time. We simply said YES. No application forms, no lengthy approval process, no waiting period, no red tape of any kind. Just a simple YES.

It’s what we do. It’s what we are here for. And it’s all made possible thanks to YOU and YOUR generosity. So an extra special thank you to all of you, from all of us at I Give A Buck, and from this wonderful little boy’s family, who had a great burden lifted in their absolute hour of need.

We were also pleased to be able to help with Dylan’s funeral costs and contributed $3,372.07