A repaired heart and a given kidney stitched this family’s story together; now their boy runs hard, their uncle heals, and their gratitude keeps moving forward to whoever needs it next. Their fifth child began as a surprise. At twenty-three weeks, Erin and Brandon learned their baby, Bennett, had a serious heart defect. He arrived in early January 2011, pink and crying, and an echo confirmed a partial AVSD: no wall between the upper chambers and no true mitral valve. Doctors expected a repair around his first birthday, but by late May, he slipped into heart failure.
On June 3, just shy of five months old, he had open-heart surgery. The surgeon patched his atrial septum with his own pericardium and shaped the best valve possible from what was there, guessing the subsequent surgery might be a decade or more away. Bennett healed fast and grew into a blur of motion. His cardiologist told them not to hold him back, so he played basketball, baseball, and football, and kept up with everyone. At six, he started daily heart medicine and never missed a beat. Checkups carried the quiet drum of another surgery someday. Then came Covid, and the ordinary worry stretched thin.
In March 2020, a second crisis entered the family. Erin’s brother-in-law, Kelly, needed a kidney transplant. Matches were scarce. Erin stepped forward to donate through a paired exchange, where one donor gives to a stranger so their loved one can receive a compatible kidney in return. Testing cleared her in January 2021, but logistics were heavy: travel, childcare for three kids, and the unknown timing. The other shoe fell at Bennett’s routine cardiology visit in late February. His heart had reached the point where a second surgery would be safer now than later, while he was still strong. He had just finished travel basketball and made the travel baseball team. It was dizzying to line up two major surgeries in one family.
Erin moved her kidney plan to the advanced donation program to set the timeline, and Kelly could receive a voucher for a match later. Two days after her approval, a Minnesota recipient appeared. On March 31, she went into surgery close to home. Recovery was smooth. Friends brought meals, the kids fetched water and blankets, and Erin walked hospital hallways and neighborhood blocks. Six weeks later, she met her recipient and saw the chain of lives linked by one yes. Bennett’s operation was set for mid-June. Pre op, the cardiologist warned his valve might be too abnormal to save.
A replacement would likely end contact sports. Bennett swallowed the news, had a few challenging moments, and then started planning what to do if that happened. His baseball team won their last tournament before surgery, and he was surprised with a basket of recovery games, which was a giant sign of encouragement. He carried that sign to the hospital like armor.
On the day, Erin walked him into the operating room and held his hand while he fell asleep. Hours later, the surgeon returned with news they hardly let themselves hope for: the valve was fully repaired without prosthetics, and the patchwork looked excellent. If all holds, another surgery might be two or three decades away. Bennett came back to the ICU wrapped in lines and beeping monitors, but each day he shed another wire. Day one out of bed. Day two laps. Day three stairs. He went home three days after open-heart surgery. For the first time in his life, Erin listened with her stethoscope and heard no murmur.
Summer turned into counting steps and shots in the driveway. Despite four weeks off, he reached his goal of ten thousand basketball shots and aimed to rejoin tackle football in August. He was cleared for all sports at his post-op visit. Fall became a whirlwind of football, fall ball, and three-on-three, with his sister’s volleyball in the mix. The only reminder of what he’d been through was the straight scar on his chest and the way his parents exhaled every time he sprinted past. The last piece slid into place when Kelly received a kidney from a stranger in late August.
After a few bumps, he began to heal, too. Erin looked back at the year and saw a surgeon rebuilding a small heart, a mother lending a kidney to a chain of strangers, teammates lifting a boy with signs and prayers, and a family carried by the steady hands of nurses and friends.
