Hello family, friends, friends of friends, clients of Smoothe, and those that happen upon our page. Corbin Ashby Baker was born on July 1, 2022, the fourth child of Lindsey and Greg. Anxiously awaiting his arrival at home was his big brother Weston, big sisters Greylin and Emerson. Unfortunately, his arrival was delayed to what doctors’ thought was newborn jaundice. Corbin was getting daily lab draws, sent home on a bili-blanket, and readmitted for “newborn jaundice”. By the grace of highly trained pediatric nurse practitioners (and mommy gut instinct), their spidey senses knew something more was going on inside his tiny body. More labs were ordered, and Corbin was seen at UNC for a specialist referral. He saw many doctors and had many lab pokes in his first month of life. Ultimately, Corbin was seen early August at Duke’s Pediatric Liver Clinic and the ball was in full motion forward. Corbin’s labs continued to worsen, his coloring continued to decline and his overall health was failing. He had a cholangiogram on August 23, 2022, confirming our suspicions. Corbin had been officially diagnosed with Biliary Atresia as well as Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, both of which cause end-stage liver disease. During the months of September and October, momma Linds continued to care for him, advocate for him, research this life-threatening condition, and FIGHT for her son’s life. Dad continued to work and hold it down at home with “the bigs” when mom and Corbin were in the hospital at Duke. Corbin was hospitalized multiple times due to grossly abnormal labs over the months leading up to his transplant.
December 3, 2022, every single star in the universe aligned for our family. We received a call from Duke at 10:15am that we will never forget. A liver match had been found for Corbin and we needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible to start the prep work for transplant. Corbin was taken into the OR around 8pm and the liver transplant was completed around 2am on December 4th. We were finally able to see him around 4am and that was the best feeling in the world.
We’ve had a few “speed bumps” along the way, working on getting medications adjusted, a way to easily obtain labs, and a few other obstacles, but overall Corbin is thriving. We thank everyone for their countless prayers, messages, meals, calls, etc. We truly appreciate each one of you.
You may be wondering what COTA is and what its purpose is. The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.