Help Medical Expenses for Marvelous Mikey Collins

UPDATE:  Mikey is on the Transplant List and on September 7th he was placed on a mechanical heart to keep him alive until he gets a heart transplant.. And now we wait and pray.   Pray that he stays stable enough to receive his heart.  He will be 6 months old on Oct 5th.  

Mikey is considered in Major Heart Failure and Open Heart is no longer an option..  Mikey is being assessed for the Transplant List and within next couple weeks should be accepted..  It is likely that very soon he will be placed on a vent because his oxygen levels and lung functions are declining.  His heart is weak so it is also likely he will need a mechanical heart to keep him alive until a donor is found.  This process could go on for months/years. Keep fighting our Marvelous Mikey and we will never give up hope and we will never stop trusting!!!!

Mikey was born on  Monday, April 5, 2021. During the course of the pregnancy, Mikey was found to have Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome (HRHS) with Tricuspid Atresia and Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). 

HRHS basically means the right side of his heart is very underdeveloped. Tricuspid Atresia indicates that his tricuspid valve is either missing or completely closed off. This is the valve that pumps blood into the right ventricle. In Mikey’s case, the valve is completely missing and the right ventricle completely unusable and severely underdeveloped. This affects the flow of oxygenated blood into the lungs and rest of the body. 

The VSD basically means there’s a hole in the wall between the right and left ventricle.

The idea is to make Mikey’s right side function as a single ventricle. When he is 4-6 months old, the 1st round repair will start with the Glenn procedure. At 2-4 years old, they’ll do the 2nd repair known as the Fontan procedure. 

When Mikey was born, they were looking for his oxygen levels to be between 75%-85%. Unfortunately his levels were in 90s which meant the heart was working too hard to pump blood out and that’s too much strain for him. So they had to do what’s called Pulmonary Banding to restrict the amount of blood that’s being pumped out so his heart doesn’t get overworked. 

Within 1st month Mikey has developed NEC and had to have exploratory surgery because blood was not flowing in lower extremities and a perforated intestine was found.   In addition,  a second Pulmonary Banding was needed to tighten the banding.  Prior to all of the surgeries he was also intubated to which he stayed until Sunday May 9th.  

Mikey will most likely never be a professional athlete and will be monitored for the rest of his life. There may even come a time when he’s much older where a transplant may be necessary, but we leave this all in God’s Hands knowing that this did not surprise Him and He’s already there.  

Right now, there's no end in sight and docs think his first open heart will occur sooner than originally planned.   This is the Glenn Procedure. 

He really is our Marvelous Mikey, our little Heart Warrior

Thank you all for your prayers ❤️