Coach True Family Fund

One of our own sure could use a True Holiday Miracle. Easton True was born to our beloved Assistant Lourdes Hockey Coach, Jeff True, and his amazing wife, April, 8 weeks premature. On day 8 of Easton’s life, his Mom noticed behavior which was not “Easton behavior”. He had an unexplained Grade IV brain bleed which lead to nonstop seizures and hydrocephalus. The Trues began to grieve as they felt their baby boy would not be coming home with them due to the outcomes the doctors provided. He had an emergency operation to save his life. Easton was given a 50/50 survival rate and was said to have severe brain damage if he survived. He has beaten all odds, as an EEG showed normal brain activity for a preemie.

He is a True Miracle and a reminder of how precious life is.

Since his first surgery at 8 days of life, Easton, now three years old, has had 11 neurosurgeries, an eye surgery, lumbar tap and 2 blood transfusions, among many other procedures. Monday, will be Easton's 12th neurosurgery and an eye procedure.

This page was created by the Salz and McPeak families, fellow Rochester Catholic School families and we are blessed to call Jeff and April our friends.  This page is to support the True family of which have an excess of 3.5 million dollars in medical bills. Coach True selflessly gives of his time, energy, expertise, and love to our children. He goes above and beyond for every boy on the Lourdes hockey team. He cares for them as his own.
 
As a faith based and loving community our hope is to support Coach True and his family. Jeff is the epitome of what our Rochester Catholic School Community is all about.  Generous and always willing to lend direction, a smiling face, and encouragement.

To his beautiful wife, April, we thank you for sharing your amazing husband with us.  We know that coaching our boys takes time away from your family and your generosity in allowing us to have him in our lives and our children’s lives is such a gift that will be very hard for us to ever thank you enough for.

In this difficult time, we want to return the love they so freely give. Any donation, word of encouragement, share, or prayer is valued greatly.  Please help raise funds for Easton’s future.

This is the True Family’s recent post on their Caring Bridge Page.  Please pray for Easton.

Bad MRI = Surgery Monday again..

By April Schneider — 1 hour ago

“This journal entry hurts our hearts to write.. Yes, you read it right, Easton's MRI showed his ventricles were still enlarged which means he needs surgery on Monday 12-21. This surgery will be more invasive. They will pull out both shunts, put them back in and connect them to only have 1 valve and we have to go to a programmable valve. We want them to try and keep the new shunt in the 4th ventricle as they have it placed perfectly (we found out there are times when the ventricle decompresses it can have the catheter touch the brain stem and that's not good obviously. Right now it's perfectly placed and we are scared if they touch it won't be placed exactly as it is now). If they can leave it they will try and leave it and use a connector to connect to the top shunt. This all may be foreign language to some.. But this is our life- you need to learn quick or you sink.. So basically in non-medical terms- we found out Easton can't have 2 separate shunts as we wanted to keep. They will need to connect them together and use a programmable valve to regulate the pressure of when the shunt drains the fluid. With 2 shunts it wasn't allowing the top shunt to drain properly. We could have put a programmable valve in the top shunt and made it a lower pressure to drain at less pressure but having two different pressure valves in your head can cause very significant headaches as he gets older. Headaches are already a potential just because he has a shunt, we don't want it to be a for sure. So we will connect them and we pray like crazy this is the right option for Easton's body. The hardest and frustrating part about shunts is everything about them!!!! Everyone has different experiences with them, a different need and they can malfunction or give issues at any time.. The surgeon assures Mom he will get this figured out and will get it working for Easton.. Mom asked Dr. Wetjen if he will visit her in Generose because that's where she may be headed- he said he would. ;) (Mom really is not going there, just extremely frustrated and exhausted). It's really taking a toll on all of us.. The things we need to keep in mind are; Easton continues to advance, catch up in skills, learn and develop all while this! Dr. Wetjen also assured Mom he is not harming Easton's brain in any way during these surgeries. Many people ask, will this be the last surgery? We always pray it is.. We prayed it was on shunt number 1.. If they replace both shunts Easton will be on shunts 6 and 7 and brain surgery 12... This is the end of our surgeries.. It has to be.. 

Easton also now has eye issues to deal with. This most recent acute case of hydrocephalus caused 6th nerve palsy. (Not sure if spelt right it's so new). This is the medical term for his eyes going crossed.. When one of the ventricles enlarged it stretched one nerve by the brain stem and caused his eyes to cross. With the ventricles not decompressing as they should have it has now been more than 6 weeks so now it's less likely the eyes will naturally uncross bc the muscle in the inside of the eye is super tight. It continues to get better but the eyes need help to loosen up now. So while Easton is under for the shunt surgery the eye surgeon will put Botox in his inner eye muscles to make them loosen up. This should make them go straight. After they loosen we will see our next steps. They say he has a 50/50 chance of needing an eye surgery. But doing this Botox now to loosen up the muscle will make the surgery if needed a much more straight forward one- because otherwise right now the state they are in it would be a very complex eye surgery.. His vision is still good. He likely is seeing double and depth perception is off currently, but vision itself is fine. 

I apologize, this entry is more frustrating but we all are very frustrated, heart broken, and Easton will be upset on Monday when we go in again too.. Easton needs a break, he needs to be allowed to heal and be a kid.. But I do believe he will be healed and done with after this. His entire medical team has his best interest at hand and they don't want him to keep going through this either. So we will continue to pray this is the correct plan and this is it.”

Please pray for them… A True Miracle.