Kingston rocking his “Beats for Beckham” t-shirt.
“Baby Beckham” (that’s what Kingston calls him) is about 15 months old. He was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) at 24 weeks gestation and had his first surgery at 12 days old. HLHS is a heart condition where the left side of the heart does not develop properly or continue to grow with the right proportions. For almost 2 months after Beckham’s birth things were relatively “normal” but that changed about a year ago. Since then Beckham has been in and out of the hospital a lot. At one point he was on life support for 8 days and underwent open heart surgery to repair his tricuspid valve.
Last fall his mom wrote this post. It’s long, and you will cry, but it will give you a very real look at what this family is dealing with. The extremely short version is that Beckham’s parents, Beto and Lindsey, were told they could take him home from the hospital in September. There’s nothing more the doctors can do. He is not improving. The only way to improve is through a heart surgery doctors have deemed him unfit for due to the extent of his brain injury.
We’ve never met Beto and Lindsey or Baby Beckham, but we pray for them often. They recently did a fundraiser with “Beats for Beckham” t-shirts, so I got one for Kingston. Every time he wears it we talk about Baby Beckham and pray for him and his mommy and daddy. My heart aches for this family and everyone who loves them, and I’m constantly inspired by the way they try to focus on cherishing each day and being grateful for the smallest blessings.
Lindsey recently wrote this: “We do not know how many days we still have with him. All we know is that we’re thankful for today.”
If you want to keep up with Beckham and his parents (so you can know how to pray for them) you can follow their Facebook page or blog.
