It’s 3:15 a.m. again and Denise Guest is still awake trying TO comfort her daughter Jillian. Jay and Denise Guest have been taking turns at Jillian’s bedside for the past 100 days at Boston Children’s Hospital. It is a labor of love, what else can they do? They only want their beautiful daughter to recover and be able to resume her life again.

On March 28 of this year Jillian suffered a broken femur which was inoperable, resulting in Jillian having to have pins in her knee and placed in traction. The Guest family learned that Jillian was not readily producing new bone and a six-week plan has now turned into a 100-day nightmare.

Jillian has always had a very special place in her family’s heart as well as the Martha’s Vineyard community, her home. She was born prematurely at 23 weeks. This unfortunately resulted in blindness and serious physical challenges for Jillian. She has fought hard, overcoming so many of the hardships that life put in her path. She graduated from the Perkins School for the Blind in 2011, and moved to Cape Cod where she has been living for the past year and half.

She is a happy person who has known only known love, and an optimist just like her mom. Most people could not deal with the everyday struggles that the Guest family have gone through. What is really amazing is how they have done it with grace, dignity, pride, always a smile, and always ready to help others as well. They have been so strong for so long but at this time in their life they alone cannot carry the weight of this injury to Jillian and its stubbornness to heal. They have fought the good fight but they are exhausted physically, emotionally, and financially. Besides being in traction and working with pain management, Jillian has had numerous infections. While trying everything possible, just this week there has been a small ray of hope. A recent X-ray has shown that there is the beginning of bone growth. This is due to a new procedure that a friend of Denise’s mentioned to her on the ferry late one night while coming home from Boston.

Denise, Jay and Alex: we are all hoping and praying for Jillian’s recovery.

Meanwhile, there is a fund set up for the Guest family through the organization You’ve Got a Friend Inc. If you would like to send a donation it can be mailed to the address below:

You’ve Got a Friend Inc.

P.O. Box 1317, West Tisbury, MA 02575.

Checks should be made payable to You’ve Got a Friend Inc. Please let them know that you would like your donation to go to the Guest Family by adding a sticky memo to your check noted with “Guest Family” on it.

If you have any questions, please call 508-693-8329.

Karen Overtoom lives in West Tisbury.