Hello I’m Scott Lowe and I’m grandpa to Marta Efraim. I’m setting the GoFund me for all the expenses related to the sudden and tragic passing of little Marta. Marta and her parents were in the United States visiting family. Since they are not from here there will be considerable expense to do the ambulance and emergency room visit. This is on top of the expense they will incur for the final resting of Marta. Please consider helping. For more of Marta’s story as told by grandpa see below.

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Our hearts are broken. This past Friday our little granddaughter unexpectedly passed away. There are just too many feelings to describe how we all feel right now, especially her mom and dad. We have not wanted to say much about it until we made it to see them. Some of you might not know the whole story of Marta so I would like to catch everyone up on this sweet soul and give you a little insight to her life.

Marta was born 18 months ago to Mary and Wlastik in Olomouc, Czechia. Those who don’t know our Mary may not have heard that she met Wlastik years ago while living in Czechia. They were married and started to raise a little family. Marta is their 2nd child (big brother is named Dan and he is pretty cute and cool just like his sister). Mary’s pregnancy was pretty normal until the end when they realized some oddities very late term. To make a long story short, Marta was born with a condition called Prader-Willi Syndrome which is caused by the deletion of part of the 15th Chromosome. If you are thinking that you never heard of it before then you were like me. There are significant issues with this condition but I won’t go into them all (you can google it) but one big issue early in life is a “failure to thrive”. They don’t eat, they don’t build muscle and in general there are all sort of developmental delays. Again the big issue is they don’t eat at this age and little Marta had to be tube fed from the beginning and go on hormone treatments almost immediately.

Mary and Wlastik had to do so much for this little one and Mary had to feed Marta by force for a long time. I will not go into all the challenges and efforts exerted by this young family. The good news was the doctors in Olomouc understood this condition and were on top of it (a long with mom). Everything they did was measured in small steps, but she was progressing. There were some hospital stays and tense moments. Little Marta system struggled along.

Fast forward to now, little Marta showed progress and was eating and drinking many time on her own, but typically with LOTS of encouragement by mom. Physical therapy had gotten her to a point where she could get anywhere she wanted by rolling around and with some help she could sit up but not always for long due to low muscle tone and development.

We were excited for this Christmas! Our kids were all coming home - including Mary and her family all the way from Czechia. We had a blast and it was so much fun to see the kids and see Mary and Wlastik at work with little Marta. We loved holding her and giving her all the love she needed. The picture below was taken on Christmas Eve as we listened to Ericka play the piano. I recorded a video so we could hear Ericka play but I didn’t want to hold my camera up in church so I just focused it on Marta.

This past Friday, our time with Mary and Wlastik was up and they need to board a plane for Salt Lake City. We said our goodbyes in Nashville. Marta had not been feeling great the previous couple of days. Momma was especially focused on her and spent time feeding and making sure she was hydrated. She appeared to be heading back to her old self. However as they landed in Salt Lake things turned for the worse and the family pleaded for help. In the terminal, a medical professional jumped into action while paramedics were called in. Sweet Marta was rushed to Primary Children’s in SLC and doctors continued to work on her. Unfortunately, little Marta’s body could not do any more and she passed away.

Right now Mary’s family is surrounding them in love. They are currently in the Salt Lake area. Ericka and I have flown in to help. Right now this little family just needs your prayers and thoughts and lots of love sent their way. They has some unique challenges. They are 1000’s of miles away from their home in Czechia. They are walking through the steps right now and I wish I could say they have never gaced death before, but it has been a tough year for them. Mary and Wlastik each lost siblings this year, so unfortunately they know what they must do for the most part.