Support Emmett's Heart Surgery Journey

As many of you know Emmett was born with a rare congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome. To put things simply the right side of his heart which is responsible for delivering blood flow to his lungs never formed. When we received the diagnosis it completely destroyed us. There was a wide range of possibilities discussed, with the best options of survival being a series of three open heart surgeries.

After Emmett’s first procedure at only 6 days old he crashed and we almost lost him. He was given less than a 1% chance of survival but defied the odds and came back to us. His first surgery was at 3 and a half months old, and has continued to amaze his entire medical team with his progress. Due to his high activity level and rapid growth his third scheduled surgery is necessary earlier than we ever expected. I don’t even have words to express how difficult walking him back into Stanford for another open heart surgery is for our family. It’s the most horrific thing to see your beautiful child in that state, and we are doing it all over again.

Surgery was supposed to be pretty uneventful, until an unforeseen complication took us straight back to his earlier days. Emmett’s heart and sternum fused together by scar tissue and when his surgeon attempted to separate the two his heart tore. A hole was created which required him to be placed on bypass and life saving measures were taken. His surgeon made the decision to close him up and stabilize him in order to allow him to heal before performing the necessary surgery. Emmett’s surgery has been delayed until hopefully Tuesday.

Anthony will be here every second while we battle this new development as well as the recovery from surgery. With this comes a huge financial responsibility on our part. From medical bills, to hotel costs, to our regular family expenses, it’s mentally exhausting. When we should be focusing on Emmett we’re stressing about how long Anthony is away from work, and how we’re going to afford it all.

We’ve been asked more times than I can count how people can help. Allowing us to focus solely on Emmett is the best help we could ask for. I thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for the endless prayers and well wishes we’ve received from you all.