As seven-year-old Tayt Anderson and his family in Rigby, ID, prepare for the young boy’s tenth open heart surgery this Summer, two sets of circumstances mount around them. One is the inevitable increase in medical expenses; in addition to the major heart procedures related to a congenital defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Tayt has also undergone more than two dozen surgeries related to his Hydrocephalus. Explained in laymen’s terms, Hypoplastic Left Hearty Syndrome means Tayt was born without a left ventricle, the part of one’s heart that pumps blood to the lungs. And due to Hydrocephalus, his brain does not drain cerebrospinal fluid, or CFS, as it should. Now Tayt awaits the day he’ll be cleared by doctors for a heart transplant, but he continues to defy medical explanations along the way. In his short lifetime he has endured more than two dozen shunt surgeries to maintain CFS drainage, and on 10 occasions his condition was so critical he was airlifted to the hospital. Six times he was resuscitated after flat-lining. Still, there is another circumstance that has bloomed, and that is the number of hearts Tayt has touched in his seven years on Earth. Though he needs a new heart inside his own small chest, Tayt’s million-watt smile and indomitable spirit have won over countless well-wishers, including Idaho-based Broulim’s Supermarkets, Associated Food Stores headquartered in Utah and Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers in Wenatchee, WA. Source: Fresh Plaza
