Archie’s Medical Bills

Hi all,

My name is Leslee Vargas Flores. My husband Victor and I are parents to our sweet baby Archie Zayne as well as our sweet foster baby Carter who is just shy of two years old.

Archie was born at only 29 weeks on March 18th and has been in the NICU since, until recently being transferred to a PICU bed on the 28th of July.

We are all very hopeful that Archie will be able to transition home soon, however he will need a lot of medical equipment as well as around the clock care at home. The cost of his medical equipment (scales, syringes, dressings for his gtube, new wardrobe to fit around his PICC line etc) on top of his already piling up medical bills have really been weighing on my family. While insurance has been very helpful, most of his copays are very high and some of his procedures were not covered by insurance as they were experimental. My husband is currently working two jobs so that I am able to be at Archie’s side for any and all procedures he has had done and for his entire recovery so I have been unable to work since Archie was born. If you feel it in your heart to help Archie with his transition home and his medical bills, we will forever be grateful.

Below is more of his story if you would like to read.

• • • •

Archie was initially born at Lakeside Hospital but was transported to Mercy Hospital due to only being 29 weeks. On his 7th day at Mercy his bowel perforated and he became septic and went into shock. He was transported to OU Children’s Hospital where he underwent a procedure to place a pinrose drain to release air from his stomach. When this procedure did not relieve his symptoms they decided to do an emergency exploratory laparotomy at bedside to see why he had air in his stomach. Upon opening his stomach they found Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) and most of his bowel at this point had died. The surgeons went in and took out the dead bowel and left him with only about 24cm of healthy bowel. His bowel became too swollen to reclose so for two days Archie sat with his intestines on the outside of his body in a silo bag waiting for him to be stable enough for surgery. Once he regained some strength they went in for surgery. They had to reopen him and do the Ileostomy. Archie now has an ostemy bag and has been diagnosed with short gut syndrome. He will have a lifetime of issues related to his nutrition.

Archie has a severe case of Cholestasis and hepatitis . They ran studies and found that Archie has DVT. There is a blood clot on one of the veins leading to his liver causing an obstruction. He has been getting injections in his legs twice a day for the past two weeks and will continue until the clot has dissolved.

Archie was also was diagnosed with stage 1 and 2 ROP. This disease can cause blindness in premature babies so it is very scary. The ophthalmologist decided it was best to intervene so Archie had laser eye surgery. The surgery was successful in stopping the ROP but what that means for his vision moving forward is unknown.

Archie also has a grade one Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) in his brain and a patent foramen ovale (PFO) in his heart that they are monitoring monthly.

Archie has been a fighter and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts as you help him continue his fight.

-Leslee, Victor and Carter.