My name is Carrie and my 10 year old son, Rhys, has been on a nutritional and psychological medical journey since January 2025.
What started as “simply” needing to consume a certain number of calories a day in January 2025 due to Rhys ‘falling off his growth curve and him needing to get back on his growth curve’ soon turned into countless GI doctor appointments, feeding therapy sessions, mental health therapy sessions, and then, eventually, an eating disorder diagnosis of ARFID, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder in the Spring of 2025. Once Rhys was diagnosed with ARFID, this opened doors to more specialized care to help him be a more healthy Rhys.
In June 2025, after 5 months of “simply” trying to consume the right foods at the right amounts with those countless doctors’ and therapists’ appointments not yielding signs of health restoration in Rhys, and now knowing that Rhys has an eating disorder, it was decided that Rhys needed more specialized care and support. So, he began a Monday through Friday day program (PHP, Partial Hospitalization Program) in Florida (our home state) for ARFID. After a few weeks, it was clear that Rhys needed even more support than this program for his eating disorder.
This all then lead to him to attending a residential program in Maryland for 3 weeks, then a hospital admission with NG-tube placement back in Florida for 2 months, and then another residential program in Virginia for 4 months. Currently, as of February 2026, he is being discharged from his Virginia facility with an NG-tube to go back home to Florida for continued therapy and medical care for ARFID as he wasn’t improving at his Virginia facility and other options needed to be explored.
What are those other options? Possibilities include g-tube placement, online eating disorder therapy, hypnotherapy, a Texas ARFID program, and many other options I’m keeping a list of to learn more about and explore, all with the hopes of Rhys recovering from ARFID and being able to live a happy and healthy life, free from any food anxieties and phobias that have controlled his life, from, what we have learned, pretty much since he was born.
Your support would help with medical bills, travel expenses, and food and supplement costs that seem to be never ending. To get a sense of where we are at financial with this journey, in 2025, Rhys’ medical insurance out-of-pocket maximum was $5,000, and he did meet that. As I anticipate he’ll meet that again this year, plus I’m looking into the Texas ARFID program (which would require me to live there with him for four weeks with hopes of staying at a Ronald McDonald House while I’m there) and him doing hypnotherapy sessions (which are not covered by insurance), I’m setting a fundraising goal of $8,000.
To get a sense of my personal background, I’m a divorced mom of two kids (Rhys is a twin), a public school teacher in the state of Florida, and I have exhausted all of my personal and sick days at this point in the school year. Due to this, any days I take off for his care from here on out this school year are days I do not get paid for.
Your love and support would be greatly appreciated beyond words.
Thank you for reading Rhys’ story.
This was me a little bit ago, but thank you. I’m being serious. All his money is just gonna help us. Thank you.
