Open Heart Surgery Fund
Donation protected
Owen was born on December 07, 2013 and what was supposed to be the happiest moment of our lives, quickly turned from joy to fear as our newborn baby boy was quickly whisked away to the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital Level 4 NICU for a congenital bowel defect.
On his second day of life, Owen had a colostomy placed so he could eat and function like a somewhat "normal" baby. In May, Owen went under the knife again for a gruelling 6 hour surgery to repair the lower portion of his bowels, which were free-floating in his abdomen. In August (8/19/2014) Owen will have one more abdominal surgery to reverse his colostomy and finally ditch the expensive monthly ostomy supplies and be able to use his fully healed bowels!
As if that wasn't hard enough to handle as new, first time parents, we discovered in July that our son has an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) that needs to be repaired with open heart surgery. This is essentially a large hole in his heart where blood is flowing in the wrong direction straining his heart muscles and allowing his lungs to be "wet" as oxygenated blood is improperly carried away from his heart.
Without this open heart surgery to patch his heart, Owen's heart will become filled with blood moving in the wrong direction and fail.. which is a very scary thing to hear about your 8 month old baby.
The bills are piling up and we're fortunate to have insurance, but we're still responsible for more than we can even imagine affording. We're turning to our community now, to help Owen pay for his open heart surgery so he can live a long, happy, and HEALTHY life and put all of these surgeries behind him. Your donation, no matter how big or how small, will bring our little family one step closer to being able to heal our son.
Thank you for taking the time to read our story, even if you are unable to support our fund, it means everything to us to spread Owen's story and give our little boy the recognition and health he deserves.
On his second day of life, Owen had a colostomy placed so he could eat and function like a somewhat "normal" baby. In May, Owen went under the knife again for a gruelling 6 hour surgery to repair the lower portion of his bowels, which were free-floating in his abdomen. In August (8/19/2014) Owen will have one more abdominal surgery to reverse his colostomy and finally ditch the expensive monthly ostomy supplies and be able to use his fully healed bowels!
As if that wasn't hard enough to handle as new, first time parents, we discovered in July that our son has an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) that needs to be repaired with open heart surgery. This is essentially a large hole in his heart where blood is flowing in the wrong direction straining his heart muscles and allowing his lungs to be "wet" as oxygenated blood is improperly carried away from his heart.
Without this open heart surgery to patch his heart, Owen's heart will become filled with blood moving in the wrong direction and fail.. which is a very scary thing to hear about your 8 month old baby.
The bills are piling up and we're fortunate to have insurance, but we're still responsible for more than we can even imagine affording. We're turning to our community now, to help Owen pay for his open heart surgery so he can live a long, happy, and HEALTHY life and put all of these surgeries behind him. Your donation, no matter how big or how small, will bring our little family one step closer to being able to heal our son.
Thank you for taking the time to read our story, even if you are unable to support our fund, it means everything to us to spread Owen's story and give our little boy the recognition and health he deserves.
Organizer
Alley Sousa
Organizer
Uniontown, PA
