A former Rhode Island school vice principal is getting help from her students as she tries to raise money for her son’s treatment.
Mary Saladino’s two-year-old son Henry has been diagnosed with a rare and severe neurological disease and suffers from multiple seizures a day, as well as paralysis, and breathing issues. Mary and her family moved to Massachusetts to be closer to Boston Children’s Hospital, where they average a trip to the ICU every two weeks — but Mary said Henry is a fighter.
“He will endure life-threatening symptoms. He will be resuscitated,” Mary said. “He will come out of a seizure just seconds before we need to intervene and he will laugh, or he will start giving everyone in the room kisses, or he’ll start dancing, or he’ll put his little hand to my mouth and look at me like, ‘Woah mom, that was a doozy. We made it.’”
A year ago, Mary learned of a treatment that could reduce the severity and frequency of Henry’s seizures, but it costs $3 million. Mary has started a fundraiser that has brought in more than $100,000, but the family has to raise $1 million by July for the treatment’s first research phase.
And Mary’s former students and colleagues at Portsmouth High School are pitching, raising money by selling Valentine’s Day grams.
“To see my former coworkers wearing red and my former students … sometimes that’s the only thing that gets us through the hard moments, is knowing that there are people who love us and love Henry,” Mary said.
For more information on the fundraiser, visit its website.
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