For more than a decade, Kaitly McCoy has battled through the aftermath of a nearly fatal meningitis diagnosis from when she was just a baby. Now, that battle is coming at an even greater expense - both financially and in quality of life.
"I can't carry her anymore," McCoy's mother Jessie explained to 11Alive. "Her chair is way too big. She doesn't bend from the hips down, so that's challenging."
Kaitlyn can't get out of her specialized wheelchair and she can't be put in her mother's car anymore.
She was born in 2004 a healthy, happy baby girl. But just months later, Kaitlyn had to be airlifted to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The little baby had stopped breathing in her sleep - the cause, they later learned, was viral meningitis.
"It caused her to quit breathing in her sleep," Jessie said. "When I walked in, she was not the same baby that I had left that day. Her cry was different, her eyes looked different."
Kaitlyn survived the painful illness, and there are ways that she is like so many other girls her age.
"She's a girlie-girl," Jessie described to 11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross during a visit Thursday.
But the virus left its scar on her life. She suffered a brain injury from the amount of time she didn't breath. And that, in turn, left her with conditions that tightened her muscles to the point that she would sometimes have her hips dislocated. She's had so many surgeries for the condition that doctors don't believe she can survive anymore.
PHOTOS | Kaitlyn McCoy
PHOTOS: Kaitlyn McCoy
Now, Kaitlyn is left in a state that makes just getting her to a doctor or hospital almost impossible without a special van - one that costs upwards of $100 a day each time her family has to rent it. The cost to buy one outright - upwards of $50,000.
Jessie told 11Alive she wants to share her daughter's amazing smile with the world, but without a handicap accessible van, they're pretty much stuck inside.
That's why Jessie is trying to buy her own van so that the process will be easier - and so that she is allowed to live a more full life.
"Last night (July 4), she didn't get to go to the fireworks," Jessie said. "She's still so happy, but she deserves to do normal things that normal kids do."
Jessie is now turning to others to make it a little easier to do just that. And in her view, having the handicap accessible van is not a want, it's a necessity.
"If I could afford the van on my own, I would do it on my own. I don't like asking people for things," she explained.
Jessie started a crowdfunding campaign to help raise $35,000 to purchase the van they need. As of July 5, she's raised about $3,000.
Jessie told 11Alive Kaitlyn is a blessing to everyone around her, but now she's hoping for a blessing to help give her daughter a more normal life.
