This was not how our family wanted to start the new year. Especially on the day I turned 4 months. On January 7, I celebrated being four months old in the emergency room at John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St Petersburg, FL, with very high bilirubin levels, causing my skin to turn yellow, and also the whites of my eyes. 

Everything is a blur from then on; I got turned into a pin cushion, and the subject of very high powered “cameras” that could see my insides. I didn’t know a liver could be that big!

Then I was diagnosed with Biliary Atresia. A very rare liver disease. It is when a baby’s bile ducts (the tubes that carry bile from the liver) become blocked. The body needs bile to aid digestion and carry wastes from the liver out of the body. When blocked ducts prevent bile from being excreted, the liver becomes damaged. 

There is no cure for Biliary Atresia. And I was too late for the Kasai procedure.

Our lives changed in a flash.

We are handling it the best way we can. I strongly believe our faith and the support of our prayer warriors is what is helping us get through this day by day as we also remain #MichaelStrong

I was airlifted to Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami to start getting my work up for a liver transplant. A transplant can range from $100,000 to $800,000. Mine is 1 million dollars! It’s not just the transplant cost, there are after transplant costs as well. 

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.