Fundraising Week Extended!

Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that we have been contacted by an anonymous donor who will match donations up to $10,000!  Because of this we have extended our 'week of fundraising'!  This is so exciting for us, please tell everyone you know.  We have set up the donations to go through Active Giving now, but I have gone through and input the donations we recieved this week through pay pal and first giving.  You can still donate on pay pal though :)  Remember, if you want to donate straight through to Valley Churches United Missions the address is provided under our donations section, but please make sure you write "C/O Timmy Hatch" somewhere on your donation so they know to put it in the account made just for Timmy :)
Timmy is doing great!  he is smiling a lot lately (as you can see in the picture in the previous blog)  He has officially started speech therapy.  He has said "ahh" a few times when asked, but we are still working on it.  We are all excited about going to the Giants game on September 19th.  Timmy is going to be so happy there, we will make sure we take pictures and post them.
The consult with Dr. De Fina is on Thursday at 9:00 A.M.  Please keep Timmy in your thoughts and prayers that this consult goes well.  I have faith that it will.
Thank you everyone who has been posting the links like crazy,and telling everyone they know.  Timmy was in the paper today, I added the link under our "newspaper articles" section, if you click on the link you can scroll to the bottom of the website for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and you will see it.  Thanks again guys!

A package from the SF Giants came today

  The package from the SF Giants came today. This was Timmy's reaction when Crystal showed him his autographed Tim Lincecum baseball. Along with that they sent hat and 10 tickets for him and his family to a game on September 19th. I can't wait, we will take lots of pictures and videos. Timmy still doesn't miss a game!

Fundraising and Giants :)

As most of you know, yesterday was the kick off day for our 'week of fundraising.'  It has been going well so far, but please keep spreading the word, everyone is doing great!  Today we got some news.  One of my mom's coworkers wrote a letter a couple weeks ago to the San Francisco Giants telling them about Timmy.  Timmy was all about the Giants, if the Giants were on, Timmy was watching them, he is still that way.  Well, they wrote back and asked if we would want tickets to a game, or something autographed, so we told them that we would like tickets for the family so that we can take Timmy :)  We found out today that we are getting tickets for the whole family to go, and also something autographed by Tim Lincecum for Timmy!  Lincecum is one of Timmy's favorites, so we are very excited about that!  We get to go to the Sunday, September 19th game.
Also, I contacted the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and they will be doing a story on Timmy and the fundraising, so look for that soon, they should be calling me in the next couple of days.
A couple more things. Caitlin and I are looking for volunteers to join our team.  We need people who will be dedicated in helping us raise this 100k for Timmy's treatment.  If you are interested please email me at friendsoftimmyhatch@hotmail.com   We are looking for sponsors also.  I ordered some bracelets a couple days ago, so look for those in the next couple of weeks, we orders black with white writing, white with black writing, orange with black writing, and red with white writing.  These will be different than the ones we had last year they will be engraved and colorfilled and will say "Friends of Timmy Hatch."  We are also thinking about getting shirts made, so lots of things to look forward to in the coming month :)
I want to thank everyone who has been posting links like crazy, donated, and who have kept Timmy in their thoughts and prayers.  We tell him all the time that he has thousands of people supporting him.  Thank you once again!

Yes...or No?

Today was another great day for Timmy.  When my mom and I arrived we told Timmy that his son, Colin would be coming and he got the biggest smile on his face, just like yesterday.  He was so happy all day, laughing, and being goofy.  Throughout the day my mom was practicing with him to nod yes and no.  He would copy her when she would show him, but then he was getting really good at it, and she would ask him questions and he would answer with nodding!  I have a video of it on my phone, and I will try to upload it tomorrow.  She asked him if he wants to eat stuff and he said yes, and then she named a bunch of stuff off and he nodded yes.  She asked him his name was Christopher, and he shook his head no, then she asked if my name (his sister) was "funky cold medina" and he nodded yes and then started laughing a lot about that.  I  love that he still jokes with us.  Sometimes he will make this snoring noise, and I have to tell him to either cough, take a breath, or swallow, but today we made a game of it, and I was copying him and he would laugh about it, then i got louder, so he did too.  A little later we were playing that game again and my mom goes "okay nooooow stop!" and he stopped right away.  It was cute.

Speech Therapy!

Today we had planned to have a family bbq at Timmy's facility, but when we were about to leave we got a call from the speech therapist at Timmy's facility and she said that she just got the order in to do a swollow test.  We told her that we would like it if she waited until we all got there, and she said yes.  We have been waiting for this order to go through for a while now, so we are very excited about this.  Secretly we know Timmy can swollow; he guilts us into giving him a taste of water every now and then, but it's a secret :)
When we got to the facility Josh and Crystal were already there.  My mom, Isaac, and me walked into Timmy's room and he had the biggest smile on his face.  He was the happiest I have seen him in a long time and he could not wipe the smile off his face, he was laughing so much that you could hear his voice in it.  We all stood around him with the same smile on our faces.
The speech therapist came, and first she used an oversized cotton swab with a hint of lemon taste to it, just to see if he could swollow, which he did.  So then she went and got thickened water which looked a lot like thin pudding.  Timmy liked that.  He kept opening his mouth for more, and when she said "do you want more?" he would stare at the cup and spoon.  She also gave him a little apple sauce, and when she asked him to swollow it he was joking around and wouldn't swollow, but would start laughing, then swollow.  It was so great to see him so happy.  During the assesment the Therapist mentioned that she came in before any of us got there, and Timmy smiled at her and she said "Timmy open your mouth and say 'ahhh'"  And she said that he followed her command right away.  Later when we were with her though he wouldn't for us, but I think he was just being shy since we were all staring at him.  He might have just been showing off for his therapist though.
On another note, we have everything ready to send to Dr. De Fina tomorrow.  We have all of Timmy's medical records, CT and MRI scans.  I am so excited to hear what he has to say, and the 2nd can not come soon enough. 
Please keep spreading the word about the week of fundraising it starts on Monday, and we need to raise $100,000 so that we can give Timmy this opportunity at what could be his last chance for treatment.  We also have a benefit concert in the works for the end of October, and I will keep you posted on it.

A fun day with Timmy

On Wednesday Sierra and I (Caitlin Hatch) got to spend a great day with Timmy.  We like to bring board games and Sierra and Timmy play them together.  First we played Connect 4, I place the game piece close to Timmy's hand and he closes his fingers, holding it and then he lets go when the piece is in the right place. He wasn't as into this game as he has been in the past so we went on to playing Monopoly Jr. During this game Timmy is able to hold the dice when I place them in his hand and then he rolls when he is ready. I move his player and ask him what move he wants to make by using the "yes" and "no" cards so he can answer my questions. I also read  "The Monster at the End of this Book" to Sierra because Dawn has said that Timmy loved that book when he was little. When reading this book Sierra turns the pages and laughs historically each time, during witch Timmy was laughing at her the whole time.  Although all this was fun, the best part of the day was when I was talking to Timmy and he was answering with the cards. I asked him if he can tell that he is getting stronger and better and her responded by looking at the yes card. Then I asked him if he believed he would get better and be himself one day and again his response was yes. I told him that he was right and he would be all the way better one day.  Another amazing moment of the day was when I held Timmy's hand in mine and asked him to squeeze my hand and so he squeezed. Then I told him that he could tell people that he loved them by squeezing their hands two times and I squeezed his hand two times and said, "I love you". To this, he responded by squeezing my hand two times and giving me a huge smile. Timmy is getting stronger all the time and days like this are to show for it.

Family Reunion

Yesterday was an amazing day!  We didn't want to tell everyone because we wanted it to be a surprise, but a few people still knew.  Timmy came to our family reunion in Santa Cruz!  When he arrived I grabbed by camera and ran over to the shuttle that brought him.  When he was out of the shuttle I said "Timmy!  Look, Josh is here!"  Timmy immediately looked over to Josh and got the hugest smile on his face.  He stayed for about 2 and half hours, and he seemed happy.  He laughed and smiled, and stayed awake the whole time.
Everyone was so happy to see him, and it felt like it completed the day.  Usually at events like this I sit there and think "this would be perfect if Timmy were here" and this time he was :)  We took a picture of the whole family behind Timmy, and I posted it on this website.  Bringing him over for the reunion just made us feel like if he came home we could do this every weekend.  Taking him over was so great for him, and he seemed to really enjoy himself.  He was making sounds like he wanted to tell us something.
Here are some pictures from the family reunion.  One is with Timmy, our brothers, and Dad.  The other is of Timmy, our brothers, me, and our mom.

Now for the exciting news!  I just got off the phone with Dr. Defina's personal assistant, and we filled out a form together, and she scheduled a consult!  The consult is in the beginning of September, and I am so excited for this.  I feel like we are getting closer and closer to him coming to help Timmy.  It's an amazing feeling when everything you have been trying so hard for finally starts to fall into place.
The fundraising week hasn't started yet, but we have already raised $500.00.  Please tell everyone you know about it.  We don't know when we will be needing the money for Dr. Defina, but since everything is set into motion, we want to make sure we have it when he says it's time :)  Thank you everyone who has been helping, praying, donating, just know that Timmy is very thankful to you.

Good News!

Yesterday my mom and I went to go visit Timmy before we went to pick up Grandpa from the airport.  We only stayed for about an hour before we had to go pick him up, but a few hours later we returned with him.  Our Grandpa hasn't seen Timmy since right after the accident, and all I kept saying was "isn't he doing so much better than when you last saw him?" and I could tell he was very impressed.  Timmy stood again, and did very well with his cones.  What we do with the cones is this : There are blue, yellow, red, and green, and we have him grab the cone (with help of supporting his arm) and we tell him what color we want him to drop it on.  Timmy is colorblind, but he does it really well, and when he does the wrong color he laughs like he is joking with us :)  I recorded a video of it, but my camera memory got full way too fast, but I will be posting that this weekend sometime.
I have some amazing news!  Dr. Defina's office emailed me back!  I am suppose to call first thing Monday morning, and I am so excited! I was so happy; I called my mom, Caitlin, and Isaac and they were excited too! This is what we have been waiting for.  This is what we are fundraising for.  This could bring our Timmy back to us!  We are planning a couple fundraisers for October, and everyone is welcome to come :) we will be posting more information on those once all of the details are worked out.
I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been praying for my brother this past year.  I know God hears you, and I know they are working.  Timmy has proven the doctors wrong already, and there is no doubt in my mind that he won't be giving up anytime soon.

An Average Day With Timmy

Today was a relaxing day with Tim.  When we arrived he was already outside with Crystal, and they were practicing holding his head up.  When we do this, we take his head rest off and put a pillow behind his back, and count to see how long he will hold his head up. Our mom was joking with him saying "Okay Tim, lets hold your head up until we count to 1 million."  He is getting good at it, and can turn from side to side with encouragement.  Our Mom is working on getting him to nod "yes" by saying "turn" "turn" from side to side and he will do this.
I was asking him if he thinks he is getting better and he looked at his 'yes' card.  I usually joke around a lot with him with the cards, so I asked him if he thinks that a beer would make him all better and he looked at the 'yes' card.  I love that he still has the same sense of humor. I got him to laugh a couple of times, his laugh always makes me smile and fills my heart with joy.
We watched the Giants game in the room, and I showed him his new blog page.  Whenever I talked about something I wanted to do to the site to our mom he would look at me like he was really interested in hearing what I had to say about it.  He looked at his 'yes' card whenever I asked him if he is happy to see our Grandpa and brother Josh this weekend, since they don't live in the area and will be in town for our family reunion. 
Timmy got to stand today and he did really good.  He likes to stand, he usually always answers 'yes' when we ask him if he wants to stand.  Today I asked though and he said 'no' but then I asked if he knew he should because it helps him, and he said 'yes'.  He seemed a little tense today and was leaning forward a lot at first, so I mentioned that maybe he had a muscle cramp in his back, so our mom gave him a neck massage with Tiger Balm and after that he was dozing off and on throughout the Giants game.
We are looking forward to tomorrow's visit because when we get there we will have our Grandpa with us, and he hasn't seen Timmy since he was first injured in a coma at Kaiser.  I will be sure to take some pictures and post them with the next update.

Fundraising

This last month Timmy's sister has come in contact with Lisa Huse, the mother of a girl who was injured just 3 months after Timmy, and was in a similar condition.  The family was raising money for a doctor in New Jersey to come treat her, the same doctor we have been trying to get in touch with for well over 6 months. This doctor has had an 85% success rate when typically there is only a 3-5%.  We are working on seeing if Timmy is eligable for Dr. Defina's treatment, and with the help of the Huse Family we are hoping to be in contact soon.  We are doing as much fundraising as possible for Timmy so that we are prepared when we get in touch with Dr. Defina, and also for future medical expenses, also to hopefully bring him home.  If anyone is interested in helping us contact Dr. Defina his email address is: pdefina@ibrfinc.org please put Timmy Hatch- Brain Injury in the subject line.  The more emails he recieves with this subject, the more Timmy will stand out :)

If you want to read more about Dr. Defina:
Dr. Defina information