Baby Beckett Gray is home from landmark heart surgery

MIDDLETON — When he first left the hospital after his heart surgery, 4-month-old Beckett Gray couldn’t take a bottle. Instead, he was fed through feeding tubes. He wasn’t growing. Beckett would sleep most of the day, exhausted from his heart complications.

Now, Beckett smiles with a bottle in his mouth. He holds it on his own.

In June, before Beckett was even born, Beckett’s mother, Rachael Gray, found out Beckett had a defect of the atrioventricular canal. This meant he would have to have surgery. Rachael said most doctors won’t perform open heart surgery on an infant that small and that young.

Undeterred, the Grays traveled to San Francisco on Oct. 31, about a month after Beckett was born, to the only doctor in the U.S. who would do the surgery Beckett needed to live.

“We were really nervous because he was so little, and the surgery isn’t performed on babies so small,” Rachael said. “They warned us (Beckett) might have a lot of complications, that he might not make it through surgery. It was really a dramatic chain of events.”

Beckett has been home with his family since Nov. 17.

“He is generally pretty happy, especially when he’s getting attention,” Rachael said. “He got really used to all the attention in the hospital. Before his surgery, his heart failure had taken over, so he was just so tired all the time. We could barely wake him up. His little personality is really coming out now.”

The Middleton community still checks in on how baby Beckett is doing.

On Oct. 14, Amanda Davies, a friend and neighbor to the Grays, created a GoFundMe page for the family. Donations poured in.

“We got home and had people sending us checks in the mail that didn’t even know us,” Rachael said. “We had a donation dropped off on Christmas that we still don’t know who it’s from. We’re just really overwhelmed with all the support that we’ve had.”

The GoFundMe page raised $10,220 for the Grays.

“We can’t believe how nice people have been,” Rachael said. “Ten thousand is plenty. It helped so much. People were so generous. We couldn’t believe it when we saw it.”

Rachael said she and her husband, Dan, didn’t know about the page for awhile, and they were surprised when they found out it was created.

That $10,000 helped cover traveling to and staying in San Francisco, Beckett’s hospital bills and providing Rachael and Dan the opportunity to take time off work to be with Beckett and their 17-month-old daughter Madelyn.

Since the surgery, Beckett has had some further heart complications. He has an irregular heartbeat and a heart murmur, which means he eventually may need a pace maker. He’ll likely need heart valve replacements throughout his life.

Rachael said these are minor and not as scary as his original conditions.

Rachael and Dan monitor Beckett’s heartbeat with a stethoscope several times a day to make sure it doesn’t beat too fast or slow. Beckett also goes to the cardiologist every three months and probably will for the rest of his life.

Despite preparing for future complications, Rachael and Dan are happy about the progress Beckett has made. He’s growing and eating normally.

Rachael and Dan are also thankful the surgery was a success.

“Our surgeon was amazing and did an awesome job,” Rachael said. “Everything has held great.”

This article was originally published at Idaho Press Tribune. It is used here with permission.