Joey's coming home!

On December 23rd 2018, Franchesca Truesdale needed an emergency C-section and gave birth 11 weeks early to her second child. Joseph Teofilo Truesdale was born weighing only 2lbs 6oz, with a small hole in his heart, and needing a machine to help him breath. Joey spent the first month of his life intubated, on a ventilator until his lungs were strong enough to work in their own. It has been a roller coaster of a journey but Joey is currently breathing on his own, with the aid of oxygen through a nasal cannula. Joey's oxygen levels in his blood still dip down sometimes due to the hole in his heart, medication is helping to shrink the hole but there is still a ways to go. But Joey hopefully will be coming home around his due date in mid march!
Franchesca has been with him in the NICU and she and her husband Desmond have been also caring for their other child Baby Des who turned 1 in September. Desmond has been the sole provider for the family working as a counselor at a domestic abuse shelter while Fran has been on unpaid leave from her job as a Buffalo Public School teacher. Unfortunately his income is not enough to cover the expenses of caring for a one year old as well the extensive medical bills of having a child in an intensive care unit. Please find it in your heart to help this wonderful family, who I am so honored to call my friends, while baby Joey remains hospitalized.