Assist with putting Ricardo down to rest

On October 7, 2024, my husband Ricardo had a massive heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was told he had a bicuspid aortic valve and aortic aneurysm that needed urgent surgery. On December 12, 2024, he went into surgery. We thought everything had gone well as he was making a slow but good recovery. Little did we know, on the day of his discharge, which was December 30, 2024, things would change for the worse.

That day, he started with shortness of breath and a low-grade fever, which ended with a fever throughout the night. As the night went on, his breathing got worse, and he was transferred back to the ICU, where he was intubated for the third time. They ran labs and procedures, but nothing was showing up; they didn’t know what was causing him to decline. His cardiologist ordered one last test to recheck his heart, and there they found his valve had a malfunction and wasn’t working properly. He needed to have surgery once again to replace the valve. He went to surgery on January 9th at 7 am. Surgery was done by 12 am on January 10. It was a long, hard surgery, and he almost didn’t make it. His surgeon didn’t really give our family hope he would make it through the night, but he made it and is still here fighting. He is currently intubated on a ventilator and ECMO machine to support his lungs and heart as they are still weak. He is making progress slowly but has a long way to recovery. He is also receiving dialysis to help remove the fluid buildup he got during surgery.

We have three small children, ages 15, 9, and 8. I am making this GoFundMe to help my family with current and future expenses as they are in the process of transferring him to another hospital. Any donation is kindly accepted. Please keep our family in your prayers too. Thank you.