Meet Jimmy!
Three year old Jimmy Lpjanic is all boy. He loves riding his bike and his ATV and playing basketball and baseball. He loves Buzz Lightyear and superhero action figures. He especially loves Diesel, the Chihuahua rescue dog that he got from Santa Claus this past Christmas. Watching him play at the Ronald McDonald House of Akron this past winter, it was easy to see he is a normal three-year-old boy, a picture of health. But, that hasn't always been the case.
The first signs of trouble began in June of 2009. It started with fever, abdominal pain and vomiting. After his parents took him to the Boardman campus of Akron Children's Hospital, Jimmy was transferred by ambulance to Akron with a possible bowl obstruction. Three days and numerous tests later, Jimmy went home with his parents - Candace, an insurance agent and James, a Culinary Institute of American trained chef turned insurance agent - with no answers as to why he got sick.
A month later, Jimmy, his parents, and his brother Andrew and sister Lindsay were on their way home from a family vacation to the Jersey shore. In the midst of a traffic jam outside of Philadelphia, Jimmy began to develop a troubling, yet familiar symptom: abdominal pain that became increasingly severe. By the time Candace and James got him to a nearby fire station, he had begun vomiting. A decision was made to take Jimmy to the nearest children's hospital, the Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital.
After many questions from hospital staff and doctors, a battery of tests, and many frantic hours of waiting, the decision was made to perform an exploratory surgery. Just four days shy of his second birthday, Jimmy was headed for emergency abdominal surgery.
A few tense hours after surgery began, the doctor emerged to tell Candace and James that everything had gone well and that Jimmy had what is called an intestinal malrotation and a blockage. In other words, he had an abnormally rotated, or twisted, part of his bowel. While the surgery had corrected this problem, Jimmy and his parents would need to stay at Hershey Children's Hospital for observation and a follow-up surgery in three days.
The Lipjanics made arrangements for their two older children, along with their car, to be taken home, while they remained in Hershey with no family or support. One of Jimmy's nurses contacted the Ronald McDonald House in Hershey and found them a room. "We were lucky enough to be given a room and one of the workers stayed and waited for us to arrive at approximatelty 3 am. She was an angel - she comforted my wife when she arrived..." In James's words, "This was the beginning of our relationship with the Ronald McDonald Houses".
A week later, James, Candace and Jimmy were discharged from the hospital. While Jimmy was frail and had lost weight, he was still a rambunctious two-year-old, and his parents were told that he should have no further trouble with his intestinal malrotation.
With Jimmy gaining strength and energy, the Lipjanics decided to take a scheduled family trip to Disney World in August of 2009. Upon returning home from Florida - in fact, before they could even unpack their bags - Jimmy began showing the same ominous signs: increasingly severe abdominal pain and vomiting. After he was seen once again at the Boardman campus of Akron Children's Hospital, he and his father were sent by Air Bear life flight to Akron for emergency abdominal surgery, this time to remove scar tissue that had caused intestinal blockage.
As soon as Jimmy was safely through surgery and on the road to recovery, his parents called the Ronald McDonald House of Akron. As James says, "They welcomed us in and gave us a room for the week. We received the same love and compassion showed to us in Hershey. We were so relieved to be able to stay so close and keep a watchful eye on Jimmy". In fact, during the seven days that Jimmy remained at Akron Children's hospital, one of his parents remained with him each night while the other would take advantage of a warm shower and a good night's sleep at the Ronald McDonald House.
This could be where the story of this amazing family ends. Only it isn't. Since his surgery in Akron in August 2009, Jimmy has no further complications or illnesses related to his intestinal malrotation. He has gained weight and now weighs 32 pounds. He is able to enjoy his favorite foods, spaghetti and meatballs and cotton candy ice cream with sprinkles. And his parents (remember his father is a trained chef) now volunteer at both Ronald McDonald Houses by making dinner for other families who are going through some of the same experiences they went through.
These are James's words: "Being able to walk in the door and have someone know just how you are feeling and just what to say to comfort you was such a blessing. We truly know that it is the people who work and volunteer at the house that make the house special, not the building itself. We remain thankful to this day and as such, we now volunteer ourselves to prepare meals for the house. We have prepared one meal for Hershey this past summer, an outdoor barbeque of ribs and chicken with all the trimmings, and we have prepared four meals for the Akron house. We try to prepare something that the families don't get very often - and we try to prepare it in such a way one would expect sitting down at their favorite restaurant. We prepare everything from scratch for the true home cooked flavor with a professional chef's touch! We will continue to support the Ronald McDonald House in a variety of ways, one of which will be to continue to prepare meals for the families as often as we can. We consider this a privilege for all the House has done for us!"
