Kenzie needs a new heart.

Hi, I’m Tiffany, mother to Kenzie Morris— a beautiful 15 month old baby girl. On July 24th Kenzie started feeling sick, we thought she just caught something that was going around. On July 27th, we took her to Urgent Care, where the provider said it was probably just a virus. At this point Kenzie wasn’t eating or drinking, she was having one wet diaper a day, she began to “belly breathe” and her face had started to swell at bit. On July 28th, we took her to the ER near our home, where they said her chest x-Ray showed she may have pneumonia in her right lung, but her urine showed she also might have a UTI. We were told to follow up with a children’s hospital in two days if she didn’t get better. On July 29th, Kenzie was in critical condition. We brought her into All Children’s Hospital in St. Pete, where after multiple tests were ran, they determined she was in heart failure and we were admitted into the ICU, then moved to the CVICU after her heart echo which showed signs of restrictive cardiomyopathy. A disease so severe, the only treatment is a heart transplant. Kenzie has been put on medication to help her heart function normally. She has had multiple blood draws, heart echos and had even had a biopsy done of her heart. On August 10th, her genetics test came back, confirming her diagnosis of restrictive cardiomyopathy due to a mutation in one of her genes.

Kenzie is now being put on the waitlist on UNOS and will be moved to the top of the list due to her condition being so severe. The doctors have tried to wean her off her heart medicine, and eventually taking her fully off of it for 48 hours to see if she could possibly go home while we wait. Unfortunately, Kenzie’s heart didn’t tolerate not being on the medication and started failing quickly again. So we will have to wait in the hospital until a donor heart becomes available.

We have a 2 year old son that has been living with his grandmother for the time being, which is hard on us as well. And I have a 13 year old daughter who had to move in with her father temporarily.

I am asking for donations to help pay our bills that we will be unable to pay otherwise due to us not being able to work as much as we could just two weeks ago. All of this was completely unexpected, as it came on suddenly and there is no history of this heart disease in our families. Kenzie was a healthy baby before this and now she will live in the hospital until her surgery and then during her recovery.

The average wait time for a heart for her age group is 3-5 months, with recovery time being 4 weeks at the very least. Anything helps.

Thank you all for visiting her page and taking the time to read her story. Please pray for her, her medical team, and the family her donor heart will come from eventually.

Thank you and God bless.