Countywide : Infant in Need of New Heart Hangs On

For Gerald and Valerie Reddix of Yorba Linda, time is both the friend and enemy of their critically ill newborn, Michael John.

Michael has been on a heart-lung machine since his birth Feb. 8. He has a defective heart that cannot be surgically repaired and is a candidate for a donated heart.

Time theoretically increases the chances of finding a donor heart. But his father said each day also strains the infant’s tenuous life.

“We don’t know how much time we have,” Gerald Reddix, 38, said Tuesday.

The boy was born in St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and immediately transferred to Children’s Hospital of Orange County after doctors discovered the heart problem. The same day, the boy was airlifted to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles because it had an available heart-lung machine needed to keep the infant alive, Reddix said.

“Now, he has survived for 22 days on that machine,” Reddix said. He and his wife and the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network are trying to increase public awareness of the donor program, he said.

“We’re told that Michael will have a very good chance if he gets a heart,” Reddix said. “He could take the heart of a child who’s up to a year and a half.”

Reddix, a marriage, family and child counselor with Minirth-Meier Clinic West in Santa Ana, said he and his wife realize the pain organ donation can cause to parents of newly deceased children.

Reddix said he and his wife visit Michael each day at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles.

“He’s really strong, and he’s alert,” Reddix said. “When we’re with him, he’ll grip our fingers. But we’re not able to pick him up.”

The Reddixes have two daughters, 12 and 10. “All we can do is pray,” he added.