Dear Friends and Family,I'm on a mission to save kids and I need your help. My local Children's Miracle Network Hospital (Monroe Carrel Jr at Vanderbilt) treats thousands of children each year, regardless of their family's ability to pay. These kids are facing scary stuff like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents to name just a few.
 

Some have asked - "Why do you do this 'ExtraLife' thing?" 

For kids like my Grand-nephew Cyrus. His family had him for almost 10 years (He passed away last year). This would not have been possible without Monroe Carell Jr Children's Hospital (A Children's Miracle Network Hospital). 

Below is a short synopsis from his Mom (my niece):

This morning, August 22, 2023, around 6:24 am, Cyrus Robert Eads passed away peacefully after a lifetime of joy, hilarity, love, and acceptance. Cyrus spent his entire life defying gravity. 

On June 2013 we learned we were having a healthy baby boy and just three short months later we were informed that our fetus had what the doctor termed a “constellation of defects” which were, he deemed, “incompatible with life”. We grew to hate that phrase. 

In late September 2013, Liz had an amnioreduction procedure after learning that Cyrus was not swallowing fluids in utero. It was then we learned about Cyrus’ trisomy on chromosome 4, having tested the genetic material in the amniotic fluid. By the third week of October, we learned that his body was no longer receiving umbilical flow during  a routine maternal fetal medicine appointment. The team determined an emergency cesarean was in order, and Cyrus was born that afternoon (a mere 20 minutes later). 

He went on to spend the subsequent 210 days in the NICU at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital in Nashville, TN. Since then we have learned so much about genetic disorders, mobility, heterotaxy, infectious diseases…so many things. And all along the way, Cyrus has shown us incredible grace. He has had this incredible gift of making anyone who knows him, fall in love. Be cheered. Have hope. He has lived when all others had assumed the worst. And now in this moment, he has left us on his own terms. 

He told us in June that he was done having tubes and needles and monitors. So the four of us (two moms, two dads) listened to him. We decided to honor him and have him home. We let him grow his hair out (he always hated having his hair cut). We stopped making him do things he hated. We let him go where he wanted…see his favorite Jellyfish and sharks at the aquarium. His nurses and family took him for daily walks around town…he even got to go with mom to work just last week, where he got to see all his friends (Liz works at his school) one last time. 

Cyrus is defying gravity forever now, in paradise with our creator as part of that love he so embodied his time on this Earth. 

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Cyrus is just one of MANY children helped by CMN Hospitals nationwide - so let's do what we can to support them and the children/families they help!

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