Help to support Fiona and her family.

This is my granddaughter, Fiona. She was born January 24th. We knew before Fiona was born that she had a heart complication, an aortic coarctation, that would require surgical correction to enable her to survive and thrive in life. Fiona’s original surgery was a success, the heart patch was doing what is was supposed to do and she was on the path to recovery. Within a short period of time of being extubated, Fiona had developed respiratory complications and once again required mechanical ventilation while her medical team worked diligently to find the cause of her respiratory complications. They found that one side of her diaphragm was paralyzed as a complication from her surgery. Once again Fiona was taken to surgery to “pin” down her diaphragm to enable her lungs to function properly. Again, she was taken off mechanical ventilation and titrated down on oxygen to room air and was doing well, for approximately 16 hours. Fiona again went into respiratory arrest and was found to have developed a spontaneous pneumothorax which required re-intubation and reinsertion of a chest tube to remove the free air from her chest cavity and enable her lung to expand. Further testing has been done and the thought is Fiona has “lung blebs,” which is a condition where numerous thin walled air sacs have formed on her right lung. These blebs have the potential to expand and burst causing another pneumothorax. We are looking at potentially a THIRD surgery in as many weeks. My son and his wife would never ask for assistance themselves, so I am reaching out on their behalf to ask for assistance to help offset some of the cost of medical care and the expenses of having to stay in another state to be with their daughter during all of this. My son has been coming back to MD to try and work while my daughter-in-law has been staying with their daughter and handling all of these medical crisis on her own. Chris has limited paid time off but can utilize FMLA, which is unpaid time off. If anyone is willing and able to help during this difficult time, they would be forever grateful. Finances should be the last thing anyone in this situation should have to be stressing over, their focus should be on their beautiful daughter. Thank you for taking the time to read about our ongoing journey.