Alpine Community Network – Alpine CA 91901

UPDATE! 2-27-12:  What a wonderful day!!! We raised over $12,000 for the Farmer Family at the ‘Nocks for Nathan Hit-A-Thon on February 26th!! We live in the BEST COMMUNITY! Thanks to everyone in Alpine who participated!!!  WE ♥ you Nathan and FAMILY! There will be e NEW FUNDRAISER ON MARCH 5th!! Please click here to see!

As many of you know, some of my friends and I are working on a fundraiser to help the Farmer family. Nathan Farmer is a friend of my son and has to go back to Mott’s Children’s Hospital in Michigan for a 3rd surgery there. Please see the flyer for the fundraiser we are doing on Feb 26th to help the Farmer family with their out of control medical bills, etc.  We are doing a Hit-a-thon at the Alpine baseball fields on Feb 26th.  To make this event a success we are in need of raffle and silent auction items.  PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THERE IS ANY WAY YOU CAN HELP WITH THESE ITEMS.  I hate to ask for this sort of thing but Nathan and his family are worth it! Also the Alpine Tavern & Grill and Celene’s Boutique have been kind enough to offer a portion of their profits on March 5th to go to the Farmer family and we are in need of raffle items for that night as well.

I apologize for asking for your help I don’t usually ask for these things. If you know Nathan you know what a great kid he is! Any questions, call me at 987-7314 or email Deana.Conway@gmail.com – Deana Conway

Information on Nathan Farmer’s Condition
As written by Nathan’s dad, James Farmer:

On December 19th, 1998 at 5:34 PM, Me and my wife were blessed with a Child of the lord, and our new son Nathan Farmer!! Nathan was a healthy baby at birth and presented no issues to be addressed. At 10 days old myself and my wife Cindy Farmer had brought our son in to the doctors for a routine well baby check up!! During this appointment the doctor was checking Nathan and had discovered that Nathan had a heart murmur. The doctor advised us to take Nathan to UCSD for a EKG, to see what was the problem. Approx. a half hour later we arrived and our son was being assessed by an EKG and a echo cardio gram, for any Heart problems. As you can only imagine, myself and wife were both in DENIAL that there was anything wrong with our son.

After the EKG and echo cardio gram was performed, we were asked to come in to the Dr. office to discuss what they had found..They had found that Nathan had a narrowing of the aorta near the heart, also known as a coarctation of the aorta.. They said that it would be an easy fix by going in through his naval and doing a balloon dilation to the affected area. Well they did do the procedure and Nathan seemed to have recovered well only being in the hospitalfor about 3 days.. The Dr. stated that if the area were to re-­‐narrow it would take months and be a very slow onset, and they would catch it before it became any problem, well that was not true!!!

About 3 months later Nathan began to look pale and was breathing very fast and shallow one day.. We called Kaiser to bring him in and be assessed that he was fine. I had dropped my wife off at the ER and attempted to find a parking spot for our car. While I was parking the car, she walked into the ER and as soon as they had seen our son, they yelled CODE PINK!!!! That is for pediatric, in cardiac and respiratory distress. Nathan Kaiser immediately said to have Nathan brought back to UCSD by an ambulance after they had stabilized him for the transport.

Once we had arrived back to UCSD, and another EKG and Echo Cardio Gram, they found that Not only was Nathan in Respiratory and Cardiac failure he also was in Renal Failure!! What they found, that during the first procedure the Dr. had over dilated the aorta, rupturing and casing a blood clot that went down his aorta getting into his renal arteries shutting down both of his kidneys. They then decided Nathan had a 50% survival rate, and to have an emergency baptism! They brought our son back for another procedure, but this time attempting to repair the torn aorta and getting his kidney’s to start working again. This time that had to cut into the side of him to be able to make the repair necessary!!

After Nathan was finished with surgery he was placed in the PICU, Pediatric Intensive Care unit where he laid for over a month. After two weeks of Nathan being on dialysis, his kidneys final started to work VERY LITTLE, and the Dr.s said that this was a MIRICAL!! Nathan was released from UCSD after about a month in a half of being hospitalized. Because of Nathans kidneys taking such a hard hit he now was required to be on blood pressure medicine, to help control his blood pressure’s..

Several years had passed and things just seemed like they were digressing rather that progressing. Nathan soon started to have hearing problems and was not growing the way he should. We brought him to the Dr. to also have this evaluated

and it was determined that due to allthe trauma to his Kidneys it had created hearing loss and his growth as well was affected. We explained to the Dr. that we had never noticed that Nathan had any hearing problems and we thought he would just be a bit smaller that kids in his age range. The Dr.’s stated that Nathan over the years had learned how to compensate for his hearing loss by reading lips. As far has Nathan’s growth the Dr.’s put Nathan on a Growth Hormone shot to help him grow, and it’s working!!

In 2007 Nathan once again was facing yet another surgery!!! They had found that Nathan had another Narrowing and one of his Kidneys had totally died and the other working at about 60-­‐70%. This surgery would take place in Michigan at Mott’s Children’s hospital due to the complexity of the vascular surgery needed and The best of the best, of Dr. ’s were there!! During this stay Nathan once again was hospitalized for over a month, and they had removed his dead kidney, and done a aorta to aorta bypass and also put a Teflon graph in Nathan right leg. The reason for the graph in the leg they found that when Nathan at three months old and went into surgery, they once again attempted another balloon dilation attempting to go through his right leg, and destroying the femoral artery in that leg, so the Teflon repair was necessary..

Fours years had past and everything to seem to have been going good.. But once again, Nathan was faced with yet another surgery date in Michigan. They found that the blood supply to his only kidney was being compromised and they needed to re-­‐implant his kidney artery to a different location. The Kidney artery was re -­‐implanted to the SMA or Gut Artery. They had also noticed that from some of the previous surgeries a lot of scar tissue had built up and hopefully not going to create any problems. After this procedure Nathan had suffered from pancreatitis which slowed down his recovery keeping him in for a month in a half.

Keeping ourfingers crossed that our son has had more than his share of medical problems, 4 months later were yet fac ed with another trip to Michigan,  This time another narrowing has started at the aorta near the new implant site for his kidney and as far as repairs the Dr.’s won’t know exactly what there plan is until they open him up and see his anatomy..However they have mentioned to us anotherAorta bypass and possible graph some where!!

Here is a little about Nathan and what he loves!!! Nathan has always been a normal child to us, and treated as one as well. Nathan Loves Baseball and has played many years becoming an All-­‐Star, a couple of years. Nathan’s Favorite team is the Boston Red Sox and has dreams to play for them in the future. Nathan also loves football, however has never been allowed to play due to his condition. He enjoys riding bikes, scooters and at times going fishing with his dad,ME !! But after this last trip to Michigan Nathan was robbed of his up and coming Baseball season, he needed more time to heal. And now with this new trip looming I wonder is it going to be that time for him to hang up his baseball mitt.

We, Thank you very much for taking the time reading this lengthy letter, for I do not have a condensed version..