Wish Book: San Jose mother of Eritrean-born boy with cerebral palsy seeks treatment for her son

SAN JOSE -- She's trekked to three continents in pursuit of care for her 10-year-old son Aaron. But still, Senait Abraha is not done searching.

Now, the single mom working two jobs has set her sights on Los Angeles, where her 35-pound boy who can't walk or talk and suffers from cerebral palsy could receive intensive therapy she only dreams of affording.

Then again, there's always a way. That much, Abraha's friends and family have learned. They've watched her fight her way out of a sorely lacking maternity ward in Asmara, Eritrea, to the Chinese city of Dalian, and now San Jose.

She has fought, at times, with just a few dollars to her name. All in search of treatment for Aaron, whose condition is complicated by some blindness and daily seizures. Donations from Wish Book readers can help Abraha with her search.

Caring for Aaron involves strapping and unstrapping his clenched hands and feet from gloves and boots secured with Velcro; hoisting him in and out of his specially equipped, padded wheelchair; and inserting a feeding tube into his belly. Then there are the mother-son "wrestling matches," nightly story times, and a recent adventure in hair-cutting, when the pair had perhaps a bit too much fun crafting Aaron's silky black curls into a mohawk.

"What's so amazing about her is she always manages to take care of Aaron with so much joy. She never treats him as a burden -- no matter how difficult it becomes," said Abraha's friend, Santa Cruz area singer-songwriter Bonny Getz. "Of course, she gets sad and she would love for him to say 'Mommy!' That's a huge dream, and it's why therapy is so hopeful. But it's ridiculously expensive, and not covered by insurance."

High costs and other obstacles rarely deter the 38-year-old Abraha. That became clear shortly after the Ethiopian-born mother -- a University of Asmara graduate who speaks Tigrinya, Amharic and English -- gave birth in 2003. Baby Aaron kept turning pink. Something wasn't right. And before she could even heal from childbirth, he was back in the hospital, comatose.

"I was planning his funeral," Abraha said in an interview outside San Jose's Martin Luther King Jr. library where she studied to be a licensed court interpreter. "I was so sad and depressed and the doctors wouldn't tell me anything. They just kept saying, 'He's sick.' "

And then, somehow, 10 days later Aaron emerged from the coma.

Abraha's family celebrated with a traditional welcome-home feast of yogurt and ga'at porridge with spiced butter. Admirers streamed in and out of the house, but Abraha became increasingly distraught. She couldn't shake her gnawing unease: "Why did it happen? Why did he go into a coma?"

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Wish Book: San Jose mother of Eritrean-born boy with cerebral palsy seeks treatment for her son