Current Needs: Help Us Help the Coller Family

May 1, 2011 by admin

Hands Across the Bay has dedicated our services and resources to assisting the Coller family with Baby Xavier’s Needs.

Below is Baby Xavier’s story written by his family:

Xavier Coller was born at Tampa General Hospital five weeks premature by emergency C~Section and during that procedure His heart stopped for a short while but the Doctors got His heart going again and Mom & Xavier were fine. This was a scare since Xavier had been diagnosed at approx. four months prior to birth with ‘Tetralogy of Fallot’ of the heart. Xavier weighed 4 lbs. 11 oz. at birth and was then diagnosed after birth with ‘Congenital Heart Defects’, ‘Tetralogy of Fallot’, ‘IUGR’, ‘IDM’, ‘Holosystolic Murmur’ & ‘Hypospadias’(they say numerous surgeries to follow). Xavier’s Mother was very sick all during the pregnancy so it was hard for her to take good care of Herself and Xavier. She had to take many medications during this time.

The authorities would not let Xavier be discharged from the hospital unless Xavier’s GrandMom (Sue Coller: age 55) and GrandDad (Steve Coller: age 60) agreed to take ‘Legal Custody’ (and plan to adopt) of Xavier which they did without hesitation since Xavier’s Mom could not care for Him. Xavier was discharged on 10/26/2010 at ‘4 lbs. 6 oz’. We are very grateful that this was able to take place quickly.

On 12/10/2010 Xavier had to be taken by ambulance to ‘All Children’s Hospital’ in St Petersburg, FL to have ‘Open Heart Surgery’ right away which they performed on 12/16/2010 after everyone agreed on what all they would do during the surgery. The surgery went very well but later that night Xavier went into ‘Acute Cardiac Arrest’ and his lungs had collapsed so tight nothing would work except ‘mouth to mouth’ which was performed for over ’11 min.’ before Xavier ( and a few of us ) started breathing again.

All Children’s Hospital allowed Xavier’s GrandMom & GrandDad to stay at his bedside 24/7 for the entire month that Xavier was there, which we did. That did put a little hardship on us since bills, etc. at home could not be kept up and we had to wait until Xavier was discharged on 01/07/2011 in order to file for the few benefits that Xavier is entitled to. It was also a little hardship for the past year of going to doctor’s appt. at least twice a week with GrandDad being disabled and gas & all, but this ‘Lil Xavier’ sure is worth it all. We are so Blessed to have the Honor of being able to raise up this little guy, Xavier is such a Blessing to us and we hope we may be a Blessing to Xavier.

Xavier is at home with GrandMom & GrandDad now and we sure did forget how much it took in order to raise a child again since we never thought that we would be doing this but we are very happy we are. There is so much joy a child brings to the home but along with that also comes a whole lot of needs that we never dreamed we would have to worry about supplying at our age and our government programs are little if any help at all.

We are asking for anything that would help us on this journey by any means anyone may have and we pray they may be Blessed as much as we are in being able to raise up Xavier.

We Thank You For Your Time & Consideration From Our Hearts.

From: Steve, Sue & Xavier Coller