COTA for LovinLevi

Our Story

Welcome to Levi’s COTA site!  Here’s a quick summary of Levi’s courageous journey conquering his congenital heart defect.

Levi is your typical 4.5-year-old boy who loves spending time outdoors, riding four wheelers or doing anything with his older brother. You would never know that there is anything different about him. That was always the hope — that he could live a “normal” life. 

Levi was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Typically to correct this syndrome, one goes through a series of three palliative surgeries – one at birth, 6 months, and early toddler years. Levi had his first open heart surgery, called the Norwood, at 6 days old at Ann and Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. That night after a successful surgery, Levi went into cardiac arrest for 39 minutes until doctors were able to put him on a heart lung bypass machine called ecmo. A few days and numerous tests later Levi came off ecmo and started to heal. He spent his first 7 weeks of life in the hospital until he was finally able to go home. Levi continued to heal and grow until he was showing more signs of heart failure, which resulted in his second open heart surgery, the Glenn, that he had at 4 months old. Unlike the first surgery, Levi healed well and only spent 10 days in the hospital. The months and years following, Levi thrived doing activities of every normal toddler: going to school, playing sports and helping with yard work. He had routine visits every few months with his phenomenal cardiac team that monitored Levi’s leaky tricuspid valve and decreased heart function. With Levi having these two heart issues it did not make him a good candidate for the last surgery. A heart transplant was his only option. 

UPDATE:  Levi received his life-saving heart transplant on October 27, 2022. Thanks to the selfless decision of a precious child’s family, Levi has a new lease on life and is living it to its fullest. He is now able to do “normal” kid activities that most take for granted like having enough energy to ride his bike, climb the ladder at the playground, swim, ice skate, and run to first base in tee ball.

100% of all donations to COTA in honor of Levi go directly to transplant-related expenses. He will have very costly medical bills and prescriptions his whole life. He takes numerous expensive prescriptions to keep his body from rejecting the transplant and has many on-going appointments and procedures post-transplant. His parents, Zach and Lindsey, take time off of work to be with Levi when he is in the hospital and also commute back and forth to/from Chicago for his many appointments and procedures.

Thank you so much for all your support and prayers for Levi and the entire Olson family.

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.