Little Cody Simmons, Coco to his family, is my nephew and my sister's only child. He was born in February 2023, 7 weeks prematurely with a heart defect called TAPVR (Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return, as well as the opening between the aorta and pulmonary arteries did not close after birth. After a major open-heart surgery at 6 weeks old, PDA repair, and 11 months in the hospital, Cody was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. He just underwent his second open-heart surgery.

His condition is changing daily. After all that his lungs were failing and he was waiting to qualify for a lung transplant. Unfortunately, he does not qualify due to the number of blood transfusions. He is currently stable, but this will become his new normal for the next few years.

Coco will be a year old at the end of February and in that time he’s been in the hospital for all but a couple of days. Most of his hospital stay has been in Boston, 2 hours from his parent’s home in Standish. His mom needs to be with him at the hospital and his estimated stay keeps getting longer. They are spending thousands on a now single income to be close to little Coco.