
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

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
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“Being broke and terrified for survival and then dealing with poverty programs in America while your daughter is in the ICU is too much. I need this to change. I need for us not to have to live within these broken systems (SSI and SNAP/food stamps) that are supposed for help but lock you into poverty and treat people like they should be ashamed to need the help.” -Elvina Scott
Colby Street is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Cayuga Heights, NY.
Colby is severely autistic, she has epilepsy, she has Cerebral Palsy-like muscular and skeletal atrophy. She has severe scoliosis, speech, auditory, and sight issues. Colby has undergone a number of surgeries, the most recent of those operations being a 10 hour spine surgery, where Colby had metal rods placed in her back to fix the increasingly debilitating curvature in her spine.
Colby has an 11-year-old sister, Coral, a mom, and a dad. Her mom, Elvina Scott (50), went to Smith College for economics. Her husband, Craig Scott (65), has won multiple Grammy Awards as a music producer. They now work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week providing care for their daughter. She is in pull-ups. She needs to be changed through the night. She needs to be fed. She needs to be bathed. She is 80 pounds. The Streets used to reside comfortably in the middle class. They are now well below the poverty line along the other [approximate] 39.7 million people in the US that live in poverty, and the 74 million people in the US on Medicaid. As of now, Colby is fighting for her life due to an unknown infection from surgery. Her road to recovery is long, and her family is suffering along with her.
*Individual image story captions coming soon.
The fever Elvina is feeling for is a beginning sign of an infection from surgery. This will be the last morning Colby Scott (14) spends waking up in her bed at home before being admitted into the hospital to treat complications.
Colby Street (14) is now being treated for sepsis in addition to pneumonia. Colby’s doctors still cannot locate the source of the infection, but the antibiotics she is prescribed are lowering the effectiveness of her seizure medication.
At 6 weeks post-op, Colby is in respiratory distress, and oxygen intake is a “point of obsession.”
Between noon on November 25 and 1 P.M. on November 26, Colby had suffered through 40 seizures and counting. The infection still had not been located.
Craig Street (65) holds his daughter’s hand as she drifts in and out of a medically induced sleep.
Colby will likely stay on the NG tube until the antibiotics have ran their course.
This year, The Streets will spend Christmas at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY.
Colby has been in the hospital for 6 weeks. She has just moved to the Rehabilitation Center at Strong Memorial Hospital from the Pediatric Ward at the Golisano Children’s Hospital in Rochester, NY. Colby is the youngest patient in the wing.