Help Support The Gartland Family!

I am making this page in hopes that as a community, we can come together to help out a family in need. My dear friends’ 13 year old son Landen, is currently admitted at Johns Hopkins and has been there since November 9th. Unfortunately, he will be there for a while longer. Between gas money, food, parking, medical bills, other bills, and both Amanda and EJ not being able to work all the time, money is obviously an issue. And like most of us, they do not like asking for help, so I am doing it for them. I know it’s around the holidays and times are tough, but anything helps and it will be greatly appreciated!

A little backstory, Landen was born with a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia. He had 26 cardiac catheterizations and 3 open heart surgeries when he was born. Then when he was 4 years old he had to have a valve replacement.

So, here is how he ended up at Hopkins. On November 9th, his parents took him to Carroll Hospital because he was having high fevers, chest pain, swelling in his legs and feet, and couldn’t be touched without screaming in pain. Landen became septic. His bloodwork indicated his kidney function was not working correctly and showed that he had a bacterial infection so they started him on IV antibiotics. He was later flown to Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital. After more testing and blood cultures, they found out that he became septic from a staph infection growing in the heart valve he had placed when he was 4 years old. The plan of care as of right now, is waiting for the blood culture to come back negative for staph as they are treating the infection, and waiting for the kidneys to recover. They are also trying to get the fluid off of him as he has gained a total of 30 pounds of extra fluid. If everything goes well, he will then go to the cardiac cath lab to check out his heart one more time before returning home with 6 to 8 weeks of IV antibiotics. Then sometime after the New Year, Landen will have an open heart surgery to replace that valve, once he has fully recovered from this adventure.

Once again, anything you can spare, even if it’s a dollar, anything helps! Let’s help out this wonderful family, the Gartland’s! ❤️ Get better soon Landen!