As Bel Air Boy Regains Strength, Family Needs Support Too

As a Bel Air boy recovers from spinal surgery, he and his family need support.

Jesse Bonham, 7, is currently in a hospital bed in Mount Washington following a rhizotomy. In this procedure, a surgeon snips nerves that have been sending signals from the spine to the muscles telling the muscles to spasm.

For years Jesse, who has cerebral palsy and attends Red Pump Elementary in Bel Air, has suffered from tightness in his legs, according to his “Auntie” and close family friend Cheryl Holler.

• See more details on Jesse’s GoFundMe page.

“He would wake up in the middle of the night crying because his legs would spasm,” Holler said, explaining that it was as though he had an unshakable Charley horse.

Before the January surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Jesse was “anxious and scared, but ready to have this done,” his mom, Amber Bonham, wrote in an update online. “This is a life-changing procedure.”

Since the surgery, Jesse has been hospitalized because his legs cannot yet support his weight. For the next several weeks, he will be receiving therapy at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, where he was enrolled in a feeding program that Bel Air Patch covered last year.

• Food All Around Him, This Child Can’t Eat
• ‘I Can’t Believe the Amount of Support’: Bel Air Mom Whose Son Struggles to Eat

As he recovers from spinal surgery, Holler said one thing Jesse needs is to have his mother with him, since he is “not a typical child” and needs someone to advocate for him and help communicate clearly what he needs.

“My friend is really having a rough time with everything that is going on. She had to leave Jesse by himself at the hospital ... because she cannot afford daycare for her children and cannot afford to lose the little bit of extra money that she makes by babysitting some other children,” Holler said.

“If we could get her some donations, she could take some time off from babysitting to be there with Jesse,” Holler added. ”She could stay there with him and advocate with him, but now it’s to the point where she can no longer afford to...”

Holler set up a Go Fund Me page for the Bonham family to raise money for childcare and travel expenses, with the goal of raising $3,000. The page had $150 in donations as of 2 p.m. on Feb. 2.

For those who cannot donate, Holler said prayers would be welcome.

Jesse’s mother also said people can send cards addressed to James Bonham at P.O. Box 558; Forest Hill, MD 21050.

Wrestling and Michael Jackson are things that lift Jesse’s spirit, according to Holler. He also loves music, and his mother says he’s been listening to a musical card Holler got him multiple times a day.

“Especially if he would get cards,” Holler said, “he would understand there are people who are supporting him.”

If you have a local fundraiser you’d like to promote on Patch, post it here.

Photo courtesy of Cheryl Holler.