Angel spent the majority of his first three years in the hospital, eventually being placed in isolation because of his extremely precarious health – he could receive no visitors, and had only minimal contact with the hospital staff every day.  During this time, Nick and Sarah both worked at Angel’s hospital (as a nurse and a volunteer, respectively) and they began to take notice of this sad, isolated boy.  The more they learned about Angel and his condition, the more they became determined to do something to help.  They felt that God had prepared them from childhood for this, that He had a divine plan for them and Angel, and that the plan was for them to be together as a family. 

Angel was three years old when he was adopted in 2002 by Nick and Sarah, who themselves were only twenty-four.  They welcomed home a very medically fragile child and were told that they could expect him to live for only two more years. 

Despite the odds stacked against them, Angel and his parents pushed forward to live as “normal” a life as possible.  They’ve gone to ball games, taken vacations, traveled to visit family and friends, seen movies, gone swimming, gone to carnivals and festivals and pumpkin patches, ridden ponies, and visited the ocean more times than they can count.  Angel has attended to school and church, had playdates and birthday parties, celebrated birthdays and Halloweens and Christmases and Easters.  In December of 2004, Angel became a big brother to Hudson, and he is over the moon to welcome his baby sister, Haven, who is due this coming August.

Indeed, Angel and his family lived an “uneventful” life for nearly five years after he came home, clearly defying the prognosis handed to his parents by his doctors when he was adopted.  That being said, “uneventful” is a relative term for a boy who has spent more than 400 days of his life in the hospital, who has had more then 30 surgeries in eight years, and who receives all of his nutrition through an IV that flows directly into his heart!

Due to Angel’s condition, his life has been threatened daily by two factors: sepsis and liver failure.  Because Angel has the central line in his heart, bacteria can easily enter his blood stream and adhere to the foreign, plastic “thing” inside of him, causing sepsis (an infection of the blood).  Even when he is "well,” it is only meticulous care that prevents Angel from developing sepsis.  As all of the nutrition has pumped intravenously into Angel’s heart (through TPN), it gets passed on to the liver, which then assimilates all of the nutrition he needs to survive.  But the liver was NEVER intended to do this job and, as such, has become extremely overworked.

After fighting to remain “healthy” for five years as part of his new family, Angel’s liver began to rapidly decline in the fall of 2007 when he got an infection.  Over the course of the next ten months or so, Angel suffered from coltis (bleeding and extreme pain when he stooled), received blood transfusions, potassium transfusions, and was put on antibiotics several times.  Angel’s liver (which was already so damaged from 8 years of being on TPN) was not doing well with the infections and antibiotics, and as it struggled to keep up, his white blood count (immune system) numbers began to drop.

With his immune system functioning so poorly, he began catching common colds every other week.  Each cold caused Angel’s white blood count numbers to go even lower... Which, in turn, attacked his liver even more.   It was a terribly vicious cycle.

In order to prevent him from being exposed to germs and bacteria that could make him still sicker, Angel was confined to his home as he was placed in “reverse isolation” this past June.  Sarah and Hudson were effectively isolated as well, lest they go out and bring home dangerous bacteria.  For over a month, as Angel’s Tbili climbed and his white blood count dropped, he and Hudson remained at home, only leaving to go to the hospital for blood transfusions and lab workups.

Amazingly, Angel never lost his playful spirit and optimistic nature.  Even when it seemed that he should be in horrendous pain, he would soldier on, watching his favorite shows, throwing water balloons, wearing a superhero cape, and being silly with Hudson.

The Total Bilirubin (Tbili) is what is used measure how healthy a person’s liver is; in Angel’s case, it is used to follow the significance of his liver failure (which could often be seen visually by how yellow or jaundiced he became). A healthy person's Tbili should be below 1, and many doctors grow concerned when a child's Tbili remains higher than 3 for a long time.  By July of 2008, Angel’s Tbili was 39.7.  If something didn’t change very, very soon, Angel’s liver would fail completely.  Angel was dying.

Nick and Sarah began consultations with the Make a Wish Foundation.  They talked with Sarah’s OB to discuss how these recent developments might affect the birth of Haven. They met extensively with doctors about potentially putting Angel on the wait list for a liver, bowel, and pancreas transplant – the one thing that just might, in the short term at least, save Angel’s life.  They lived, literally, day to day, not knowing what the next hour might bring.  They prayed.  And hoped.  And prayed some more.

To say that the transplant and recovery would be long and difficult was an extreme understatement.  Nick and Sarah did not want to put their beloved Angel through something so exhausting and drastic… and yet… If they did not, he might not survive.  In early July, Angel was not yet deemed "sick enough" to receive organs very quickly. His “score” would need to go up, and his condition would have to be even more critical. Worse labs. Needing blood products regularly.  In the hospital/ICU.  And so, Sarah and Nick lived in an emotional limbo that no parent should ever have to face – should they wait for Angel get better… or worse?

On July 7, 2008, Angel was officially listed for a liver, bowel, and pancreas transplant.
His family was told that the wait for organs could be days, weeks, or months, depending on many factors – Angel’s health, the availability of the organs, the quality of the organs that became available.  They waited.  They cried. They lived.  They laughed.  They prayed. 

At 2:15 a.m. in the morning of July 20, 2008, just 13 days after Angel was listed, Sarah and Nick received a call that there were organs available for Angel. 

And so Angel took the next step along the long and scary path the might ultimately save his life.