The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

TARA Saunders never imagined she would be fighting to raise $125,000 so her two-year-old son with a rare congenital heart defect can have surgery and live a normal life.

Chavez Saunders was born with a double outlet right ventricle (DORV) and a ventricular septal defect (VSD). He has a hole in his heart.

“The pulmonary artery and the aorta,” his mother said, “are connected to the right side of the heart as opposed to one being connected to the left and the other being connected to the right. Through repair surgery, we could turn one of the arteries to the left side and close the hole in his heart.”

Ms Saunders, 33, does not have insurance but she said the Joe Dimaggio Children’s Hospital in Florida has agreed to discount the cost of surgery and related expenses for “roughly $125,000,” all of which must be paid by October 2.

“The hospital gave me the schedule for his testing and his surgery and it was all a shocker for me because I didn’t expect them to say we need to go straight into surgery,” she said. “They gave us a discounted price for the surgery. We were told a surgery like this could easily cost over a million. We don’t have anything except for the donations we have already raised in the amount of $8,000. We have a campaign we started through Cofund Health, which is a (crowdfunding resource). We wanted to do a cookout but with COVID-19 that’s really difficult.”

Ms Saunders said the older her son gets without having the corrective surgery, the greater the risks are for his quality and length of life.

“Because of the heart condition, he’s not able to go outside,” she said. “I have to keep him isolated. When he runs around inside playing, he gets shortness of breath, he’s unable to play with other kids so I have him usually playing with blocks just to keep him stimulated. As simple as getting a cold we have to monitor him closely. Any sickness can be detrimental to him so we try to minimise the amount of interaction he has with other children that may be sick so his immune system and condition doesn’t worsen. He’s getting older and the paediatric cardiologist said you don’t want him to be unable to live a longer life as he ages.”

The young mother said she is exhausted but hopeful.

“I never expected or dreamt that I would be in this position today,” she said. “You could never account for when you have children what’s going to come of it.”

Ms Saunders, who can be reached at 426-2865, established a CoFund Health page at https://app.cofundhealth.com/campaign/aG6xycVRdP