Mommy needs a new heart!

Stacy Need's a New Heart
Pictures of Stacy and the girls 

My older sister, Stacy, was born with a condition known as, “Transposition of the Great Vessels”, in 1980. To you and me that means that her heart is kinda backwards from a normal human heart. She was a “blue baby” at birth. Thankfully, as she was laying in the hospital nursery, a young pediatrician by the name of Dr. Nation walked by. He took one look at Stacy and said; “something is wrong with that baby; her skin color is blue.” That very same doctor went on to become our family pediatrician for the next 30 years. There was some hope, but Stacy’s initial diagnosis was rather grim. The doctors gave her only a slim chance to live long enough to make to kindergarten, and first grade was iffy at best. For starters, she would need an operation as soon as she was strong enough to survive the anesthesia, that is if she lived that long. At just six months old, they wheeled her into the operating room for her first surgery--the fact that she lived through that first open-heart surgery was the first miracle of her life. Everyone held their collective breath. Miraculously, she made it into the recovery room, with her heart still pumping. After the initial elation, my parents and grandparents were told that this first victory may be somewhat hollow. It was very likely her life would be short and that she would likely be a sickly child for whatever time she had on earth. Now, if you know my sister, you know that she is as stubborn as a mule. That road was long and hard, but she surpassed all the doctor’s early projections for life expectancy!

Stacy’s outward appearance was not that of “very sick child”. But the inside was a whole other story. Her immune system is totally compromised. For instance; if she got a cold, she really had A COLD! Like nothing we had seen before. If she got the flu, she was hospitalized. If she got an infection, the same thing. She could never go to the dentist without taking antibiotics before hand and she’s spent countless hours over the course of her life in the doctor’s office and hospital for a slew of ailments, tests and procedures that needed attention because of her heart condition. Since her first open heart surgery at 6 months, she has had too many surgeries to count. At this point, her heart surgeon, Dr. Salem, explained it like this—”over the years, we have piecing her heart back together as if it were a tattered old baby blanket. You can keep sewing on it but at some point, the thread just pulls through and you’re left with something worse than when you started.” In effect, her heart cannot be “fixed” anymore. We always knew that a heart transplant could be “in the future”—well, it turns out that the future is now.

Up until a few years ago, she led a relatively “normal” life. Because of medications that she was on, she couldn’t have a baby of her own. As a fighter with a will, her condition didn’t stop her from adopting a child in need of a home. She adopted her daughter Lexi when she was 23. What most people don’t know is that Lexi has 3 biological siblings that my sister has fought for across two states for the last 18 years. In 2017, she was successfully granted custody of the youngest of those 4 siblings and she got to start all over with a 3-year-old (that adoption will FINALLY be official in April)!

Stacy will be 42 in June and she needs a heart transplant. She was approved to be put on the transplant list on 2/17/2022. She has two kids and hasn’t been able to work since COVID and it has been determined that she likely won’t be able to work ever again. She has applied for permanent disability benefits but those take FOREVER to get approved (if they ever do) and in the meantime, there are everyday house bills to pay and being able to keep the kids lives as “normal” as possible by affording them to continue doing dance, etc. (not to mention the very expensive attorneys that have helped us fight for her youngest daughter for over 5 years!)

Asking for money isn’t something that is taken lightly—we’ve all been pitching in and figuring it out, but sometimes you just need to reach out. It takes a village, right? She needs her village right now. If you have the means, please donate. We will use this page to update her transplant journey as well, so follow along if you like.