Drake Alexander Boatright was born at St. David’s Medical Center on September 11, 2014, to proud mother, Jennifer, and proud grandparents, Adri and Danny Boatright. Drake made his world debut twelve weeks early, and tipped the scales at only 2 pounds, 8 ounces and was 15 inches long.

Drake was born with a diagnosis called VACTERL Syndrome. VACTERL is an acronym used to describe a series of characteristics which have been found to occur together. It is estimated 1 in 10,000 – 40,000 infants are born with this syndrome.

V ‐ Vertebrae which are the bones of the spinal column. Drake has butterfly shaped
vertebrae.
A ‐ Imperforated anus or an anus that does not open to the outside of the body. Drake
has a colostomy that will be reversed at one year old.
C ‐ Cardiac abnormalities. Drake was born with a VSD (Ventricular Septic Defect with
pulmonary hypertension.
T ‐ E ‐ TE stand for tracheoesophageal fistula which is a persistent connection between
the trachea and the esophagus.
R ‐ This is renal or kidney abnormalities. Drake has a horseshoe shaped kidney.
L ‐ Stands for limb abnormalities and he does not have any of this.

Drake had is first surgery when he was just 15 hours old. This procedure was to repair his esophagus and to do his colostomy. He had his second surgery on December 15, 2014 to repair a hernia on his left diaphragm and also to do the gastronomy tube. Almost four months later on January 5, 2015, he was released to finally go home. Every NICU doctor and nurse got to know Drake's personality very well! Everything was done when Drake was ready. The doctors had one plan, but Drake had another. They referred to their treatment plan as “Drake's Way”!

He spent 14 days at home and then on January 19, 2015 was admitted to Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin with respiratory distress to be monitored overnight. Drake had other plans. He ended up being intubated for four days because he decided to stop breathing. On January 26, he had another episode and his heart stopped. The doctors decided at that time that they would start preparing for his open heart surgery. On February 5 they did a heart cath in preparation to his heart surgery. The following day he developed pneumonia and was put on a ventilator for another seven days. They would nurse him back to health in preparation for his open heart surgery.

Finally on February 24 he had his surgery and did very well. After being intubated for another seven days, he quickly became our Drake again. His recovery went very good and he finally got to come home on March 19th. On March 22nd he began to run high fever and had a virus. So he was admitted to Dell Children’s once again. He spent a few days and returned home on March 26th.

Drake still has a few more surgeries to go through as he gets older. The doctors will need to repair a couple of hernias, reverse his colostomy and remove of his g‐tube. He was also diagnosed with tethered cord which will also need to be addressed in the future. He has many doctor appointments to go to every week and hates to ride in his car seat. So the trips to Austin are rather eventful. The doctors told us when he was first born that he had a lot of issues and they would put him together "like a puzzle". He has had some wonderful doctors and nurses
at both hospitals taking care of him and for that we are very thankful. We also greatly appreciate the thoughts and prayers from so many friends and family. We are humbled by the generosity of our friends and family. Please keep the prayers coming as Drake still has many more procedures endure.