The Petersen Family

One summer weekend, after their town had a terrible storm, Seth and Katie’s little girl Naomi got sick.

After a week of going back and forth from their home to the hospital to the ER, doctors found blood clots in Naomi’s legs.

They took an ambulance ride to Children’s, and even then, they had a few hours with x-rays and seeing various specialists without any real answers. No one could pinpoint what was going on.

At that point, Naomi’s vital were dropping and Seth and Katie were getting scared. A new doctor, Dr. Flynn walked into their room. To this day, Seth remembers their first encounter with Dr. Flynn with her red hair (coming form a beautiful family of redheads!) and how calm she was speaking with the family. They spoke for a bit, but she very calmly explained they were going to bring Naomi upstairs.

Seth said it felt like suddenly a light switched. All of the sudden there were 30 people in the room and Dr. Flynn was directing everyone because she knew… 

Naomi had gone septic.

Seth and Katie were ushered out of the room and had to go sit down at the end of the hall. They kept seeing people come and go just racing in and out of the room. At that point, Naomi was so dehydrated that they couldn’t get a central line in her neck, or really any IV in what-so-ever. Her blood pressure was dropping… the doctors just couldn’t keep up.

Finally, with their next doctor, the Peterson’s got answers. Naomi had MRSA. She was in a medically induced coma and needed surgery to remove the infection

Naomi was admitted into Children’s in mid-July and was there until the end of September. That’s when they were finally discharged and sent to Gillette Children's Hospital to begin physical therapy. Her MRSA infection had basically turned the bone that had the infection (in her leg) to Styrofoam. So while the Petersons were so excited to be leaving Children’s and begin physical therapy, they were also terrified.

Naomi began physical therapy at Gillette – and their fears were confirmed. They knew it was a risk from the start, but during therapy, Naomi broke her leg. That meant, it was time to go home. There just wasn’t anything more Gillette could do other than let Naomi rest and grow stronger. 

What did all this mean for mom and dad’s bills?

That’s when the Peterson family learned about Spare Key. Seth had a friend who had used Spare Key in the past for their child so he told Seth to reach out. The timing was perfect. When the bills started piling up, and friends, family, and community all wanted to help… the Petersons turned to Spare Key and our Help Me Bounce platform.

Once they started a campaign and put their story out there, Katie remembers there being so much less pressure to tell people how they could help. 

They remember how incredible it was going to the Help Me Bounce website and seeing the outpour of support. Seeing what people had contributed and how much of a difference this was going to make while they were concentrating on Naomi’s recovery. It was overwhelming and so generous.

Today, everyone in the Peterson Family is thriving. 

They are doing great. And that is because of generous donors like you. Katie explained, “Your donation means peace of mind that the home is ok, and that everything financially is going to be ok. You take that one small piece away from everything else the family is concentrating on. Instead, they get to focus on their child and the situation at hand. That is an amazing gift. I don’t know how families would do it without this assistance.”