Hi! My name is Maxwell! I’m pretty much your average 4 month old boy. I love playing in my bouncer, eating rice cereal, and I think my dog is hilarious! When I was 2 days old, the doctor in the hospital heard a slight heart murmur when he was checking me over. We did not know of any heart problems in my family and my heart looked fine on ultrasounds when my mommy was pregnant with me, so we did not expect there to be anything wrong. Luckily, the doctor ordered a special scan to see what was going on. They discovered a congenital heart defect called a Bicuspid Aortic Valve. Basically, that means I have a bad valve in my heart that isn’t efficiently letting blood through, so my heart has to work extra hard! Since I was about a few days old my parents and I have had to go to the cardiologist every few weeks (sometimes weekly) to have scans done on my heart to monitor its function. At the end of January, I had my first interventional procedure. My cardiologist went with a catheter up into my heart and used a balloon to open the valve up a little bit. This has made my heart function a lot better, but we still need to watch it closely. Within the next few years, they will need to replace my bad valve in an open-heart surgery. Then, when I am bigger, it will have to be replaced again because the piece they put in its place will not grow with me. The scans, the balloon procedure, nights in the hospital and my eventual surgeries cost a lot of money. My parents work really hard (dad has 3 jobs and mom works full time), but insurance doesn’t cover much, and my mom misses work sometimes to take me to appointments or care for me when I’m sick. The bills are stacking up and they aren’t going to stop and we could really use some help so that I can continue to see my cardiologist and get the care I need. Thank you so much for helping!