The doctors said he wouldn’t make it. This Broward mom hasn’t given up on her son
Carressa Jackson looked at the bill for $1 million.
It had come after her son Jerome Scott’s heart rate dropped, after doctors delivered him — weighing barely a pound — at 26 weeks, after a helicopter whisked the newborn from West Palm Beach to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and after a series of tubes and an incubator were employed to keep him alive.
“I had no idea what to do,” she said. Her insurance footed most of the bill, but Jackson, a single mother of two whose middle-class income disqualified her from the hospital’s grant programs, would be paying the rest of it off for years.
The doctors recommended hospice for the newborn. He was unlikely to survive, they said. All Jackson knew was that she’d fight for her son to the end.
That was six years ago.
Jackson, 40, is still fighting. And despite the odds, so is Jerome.
“He’s a complex medical child,” said Maria Mendez, a social worker at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital who worked with Jerome and Jackson last year. “And [Jackson] is a great historian, a great mom, very active and involved. She knew everything about [Jerome].”
Including, from memory, a comprehensive list of diagnoses so long it could fill a medical textbook. Cerebral palsy, developmental delay, chronic lung disease, seizures, obstructive hydrocephalus — fluid buildup in the brain — pulmonary hypertension, loss of peripheral vision, to name a few.
But on a recent Saturday afternoon, Jerome, 6, toddled inquisitively around his home’s living room. He investigated the blue-tinseled Christmas tree in the corner before turning on a nearby toy piano. After perfunctorily banging a few off-key notes, he decided to take his flashing PAW Patrol toy ride-on car for a spin.
Jackson watched eagerly from the couch. For the entirety of his life, Jerome had gotten around in a wheelchair. “He just started walking two weeks ago,” she said, after two weeks of intensive therapies that cost her $10,000 — all out of pocket.
But if it gives her son a better chance at an independent life, she’s happy to pay. And there’s a lot more she’d pay for if she had the money. That’s why Nicklaus Children’s Hospital nominated Jerome for help from Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald Wish Book.
For starters, Jackson said, “I’d like for him to learn how to eat.” Jerome doesn’t yet know how to chew or swallow, so she feeds him through a gastrostomy tube. Talking would probably come next, she said.
But both therapies cost tens of thousands of dollars, and Jackson must keep herself, Jerome and her 14-year-old daughter, Paris, housed, fed, healthy, and able to get around on less than $100,000 a year.
And she has to do it all without the help of a partner — though her family, which has been in South Florida for generations, is an invaluable source of support. As Jackson spoke, her mother, Sandra, wrestled a pair of shoes onto Jerome’s feet so he could go for a walk.
But even with the help, Jackson spends nearly every waking, non-working moment caring for her son.
“I don’t have my own time,” she said. “It’s all dedicated to him.”
Jackson’s day begins at 4 a.m., when she leaves her home in Coconut Creek to pick up Jerome’s nurse in Fort Lauderdale. She then shuttles him to school or physical therapy, before clocking in at work as a senior account advisor at FPL. Then it’s a round of school pick-ups, appointment drop-offs and errands in a car she says is too old and beat up for comfort, all before she gets home, feeds her kids — which, with Jerome, is an ordeal — finishes whatever work she has left and hopefully gets to bed by midnight.
“It’s hundreds of miles a week,” she said. The gas costs, the tolls, the unexpected but all-too-frequent car repairs drain whatever money doesn’t go to her family’s immediate survival needs.
Jackson says she hasn’t been able to save meaningfully in years. Whatever she can scrape together goes toward medications or therapies for Jerome that insurance won’t cover.
That’s meant other important expenses go unpaid. Jackson was heartbroken to pull her daughter, Paris, out of cheerleading at Cheer Florida earlier this year. “Money was too tight,” and classes cost around $200 per month. At home, the roof leaks when it rains. She hasn’t been able to afford to fix it.
Because, frankly, Jackson’s got bigger, more immediate fish to fry — like making sure Jerome can maintain, or ideally increase, his mobility.
To that end, Jackson hopes this holiday season that Wish Book can help make her house more accessible for Jerome.
A railing, so he can learn to walk up her two-story home’s stairs to his bedroom, would be a great start. As would a ramp into the house, in case he needs wheelchair assistance. She also wants to be able to pay for Paris’ cheerleading classes — or a tutor for some of her daughter’s harder AP courses.
Beyond that, she says, Jerome loves the outdoors — especially the water. Out back Jackson has an above-ground pool, and she’d love a set of stairs, so Jerome can get in and out of the water, which he uses for physical therapy.
She also hopes to be able to convert her shower-tub to a walk-in so she doesn’t have to lift Jerome, who seems to get heavier with each passing month, in and out.
All of that will give Jerome more opportunities to practice walking and take small steps toward modest self-sufficiency, she said.
Soon after, Jerome burst through the front door, holding his grandmother’s hand after a lap around the cul-de-sac.
Jackson wiped at her eyes. “I call him my miracle baby,” she said.
How to help
To help this Wish Book nominee and more than 150 others who are in need this year:
▪ To donate, use the coupon found in the newspaper or pay securely online through www.MiamiHerald.com/wishbook
▪ For more information, call 305-376-2906 or email Wishbook@MiamiHerald.com
▪ The most requested items are often laptops and tablets for school, furniture, and accessible vans
▪ Read all Wish Book stories on www.MiamiHerald.com/wishbook
This story was produced with financial support from supporters including The Green Family Foundation Trust and Ken O’Keefe, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
