Support 2-year-old Eli as he Undergoes Open Heart Surgery

This fundraiser benefits the family of 2-year-old Eli Lopez and his parents Alex Lopez, and Hannah Brewer as they travel to Boston this fall for Eli to undergo open heart surgery.

Eli was born with a single ventricle heart. At just 3 days old he had his first life saving procedure when doctors inserted a PDA stunt into his heart. He spent the first 6 weeks of his life in the hospital recovering. At 5 months old Eli underwent his first open heart surgery to reroute his circulation. His mom describes those 3 hours she spent anxiously waiting for him to come out of surgery as the longest in her life. Since then, Eli has spent the last 2 years growing, learning and becoming a wonderfully curious little boy. Yet, his oxygen levels remain routinely low and he needs a bivalent repair. This is an open heart surgery that takes about 7 hours for surgeons to complete.

Unfortunately, no facilities in Dallas have the resources or experience to perform the bivent surgery on little Eli. Instead, he must have the procedure performed at Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts. This will be the riskiest and longest procedure he has ever had. Still, this surgery is his best option.

Eli's family will be traveling to Boston from October 6-12th for pre-surgical testing, a sedated MRI, and a heart catheter procedure. They'll return to Boston November 3rd for the surgery. Thereafter, they will remain in Boston for about a month while Eli recovers in the hospital and waits to be cleared to travel back to Dallas.

While Eli's family are excited about the benefits this surgery will have on his health - the cost of the surgery is really adding up. In addition to the crazy cost of the medical bills, they also need to pay for plane tickets, temporary housing in Boston, random travel expenses and miscellaneous expenses while staying in Boston. Meanwhile, they still have to maintain their normal expenses related to their home in Dallas and will have to take some unpaid time off from work to be in Boston.

All donations will go towards helping cover these extra costs they are incurring.