July 21, 2015 
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RUSTON, La. - Family is vitally important to Thomas Graham. His immediate family, his extended family, even his LA Tech Family are all a big part of his life and were the backbone for him when he learned during the 17-week ultrasound check for his unborn daughter that something was wrong. That began nine months of learning how deep the bonds of family go.
In a nutshell, Thomas Graham is Louisiana Tech Football. A four-year letterwinner, he was the deep snapper that never had a snap go awry. He continued every young man's dream of football by becoming a graduate assistant coach, which turned into a position as the Director of Football Recruiting and now the academic advisor for the football team.
Thomas followed the footsteps of his older brother, Matt, who also was a snapper for the Bulldogs. Their younger brother, Gantt, worked on the football equipment staff as a student. Even his wife, Maggie, received her master's degree from Louisiana Tech. They bleed Red and Blue.
The excitement over the announcement that "Baby G" was coming was even more than a bowl win for the Bulldogs. "Baby G" would be the child's name until the baby was born as Thomas and Maggie didn't want to find out the sex of the baby beforehand.
Good news in bad weather
Thomas and Maggie first found out they were pregnant during the winter storm that shut down Louisiana Tech University and most of Ruston for three days back in February 2014. Maggie thought she was pregnant, Thomas wanted to be no doubt to be left.
"I wanted to be sure," Thomas recalled. "I wanted no doubt in our minds so we made our way to the store and bought three or four of the most expensive pregnancy tests available. They all said yes."
Lindsey Avinger (née Graham), Thomas's sister who had her first child just weeks earlier on Signing Day, found out first.
"We had visited Dallas (right after the winter storm) and were on the verge of telling her then," said Thomas. "We held off for about a week after that before we couldn't handle it anymore so we called her up and told her.
"When we told my parents, we were over visiting and had acted like nothing was going on but Maggie was anxious, waiting on when I would tell them," Thomas continued. "Right before we left, I nonchalantly said, `Dad, we're about to leave but I just wanted you to know we're pregnant.' He jumped up out of his chair and was really excited."
Family First
Family is important to Thomas and Maggie. That is why they invited Maggie's aunt, who was never able to have children of her own, to join them for the 17-week ultrasound in Monroe. They wanted to share the excitement and make it a special moment for her as well as Thomas and Maggie. During the ultrasound, the doctor was quiet and the three didn't know anything was wrong until the doctor said she had to make a phone call and abruptly left the room.
Something was wrong but nobody knew what. The initial thought was the worst case scenario, hypoplastic left syndrome, a rare defect where the left side of the heart is critically underdeveloped. In that case, a minimum of four different surgeries is required to fix the condition for the newborn baby. But more experience would be needed to know for sure and the Grahams were referred to Dr. Michael Brumund, a pediatric cardiologist in Baton Rouge.
That left a long drive of tears and silence going back to Ruston from Monroe and a lot of unanswered questions. But first thing was first, they had to start telling family members.
"My parents were in Canada on vacation. First I had to call them and tell them what was going on. They left their trip early and immediately came home. It was emotional," Thomas said with tears in his eyes as he recalled the conversation. "For them, they hated not being there in person to be able to hug their son. But just to hear their voice was important. They were hurting just as much as Maggie or I, hurting for me and hurting for us, because they know what it is like to be newly married, to start a life, start a job."
Then it was figuring out where to go and what to do next. That turned into waiting to go to Baton Rouge to get more answers.
Telling the LA Tech Family
The phrase "LA Tech Family" is more than just lip service or a recruiting pitch. Students, faculty and alumni come together on a beautiful campus in a small college town in north Louisiana to form a bond among each other. Thomas -- the Director of Football Recruiting at the time -- now had to tell his boss, head football coach Skip Holtz, what was going on and if he could get a day off here or there for doctor's visits.
"This University has been beyond great and generous throughout this whole process," Thomas said. "They say it takes a village to raise a child but this was so much more than that. It was a program, an athletics department, a university, a town, anyone and everyone we knew constantly supported us.
But trying to ask for extra time off during the spring recruiting months wouldn't be easy. The initial ultrasound was in April right as spring football was ending and the coaches would be hitting the road for five consecutive weeks of recruiting. And it was Thomas's task to organize all of that.
"It tugged on my heartstrings because I am a father with three healthy children," said Holtz. "I can only imagine putting myself in that situation and that is what I tried to do with Thomas when he told me. I told him to do what he needed to do for his family, we would be praying for them and we will do whatever we need to do to help him."
That included the entire football staff pitching in. Thomas would lay the foundation of a critical time in recruiting but the entire staff from Holtz down to the assistants and support staff helped wherever and whenever they could.
Of course, getting someone with a work ethic like Thomas has to not think about his job was something he would have to adjust to.
"Thomas was trying to tell me how he could do both," Holtz said of Thomas's plan to balance his work life and home life during this time. "I told him that we don't want him to do both. He needed to be there for his family and for his wife. He is such a good guy, he loves this school and he doesn't want to let anyone down so he was trying to balance both. That is when I told him that his is the time to focus on your family."
For Thomas, who was facing a daunting challenge in all aspects of his life, Holtz's words came as a welcome relief.
"I won't ever be able to repay him or truly thank him," Thomas said of Holtz. "For him to not only say that but also back it up was a load off my back and that's considering I already had a big load anyway with recruiting. It was an answered prayer not having to worry about a lot of that."
The support the Grahams received was the true embodiment of the Louisiana Tech Family coming together to help one of their own.
"For those of us that work with him on a day-to-day basis, it was about lifting him up each day," Holtz recalled. "Every one of our coaches was asking him constantly, `What can we do to help?' I think all of those things are part of what makes you look back and reflect that you never could have made it through that period without your family, whether it be the Louisiana Tech Family or your name family.
"There is no doubt you are part of your name family but definitely being part of the Louisiana Tech Family with the number of people that care, that reached out and tried to help and that he heard from, even on a day-to-day basis," continued Holtz. "He has told me repeatedly how much he appreciated that support, his brothers called and thanked me and his dad called and thanked me. I think it meant the world to not only Thomas but the entire Graham family, which has a little bit of history at this school."
The LA Tech Family support didn't end there. The program's support staff and members of the administration pitched in, offering support whenever and wherever needed. Athletic Director Tommy McClelland offered his support in whatever he could do to help.
"President Guice was big too," Thomas recalled. "He and my father-in-law are friends and have been for a while. My father-in-law, now an engineer with Shell, took his first class in engineering. President Guice was constantly asking about us, saying he was praying for us. This wasn't just a few people here or there, this went all the way up to the President's office. There are so many people that were involved, but that's what is great about this university."
An army invades Baton Rouge
When the time came to visit Dr. Brumund, at least for the first time, an army of Grahams made the trip down to the state capital from north Louisiana.
"We rolled into his office seven or eight deep," Thomas recalled. "But he was absolutely phenomenal. He is a steal, I would say, to have in Louisiana. He's great, a big jokester, but really just a phenomenal guy. He has diplomas all over his wall. In that meeting, we found out it wasn't hypoplastic and thought that was an answered prayer."
The results showed congenital heart disease (CHD), something that is more common than all childhood cancers combined. One in 100 babies are affected by CHD. Baby G's exact diagnosis was hypoplasia, the underdevelopment or incomplete development of a tissue or an organ, in this case the heart. There was a restriction in the arch and blood flow wasn't getting to where it needed to be with the development of the heart being influenced by that.
There were several visits to Dr. Brumund in Baton Rouge and by June, Baby G had showed positive growth. An earlier scheduled vacation to the beach that month was teetering on happening but this allowed the family to relax.
"We went to the beach in June and at that point, everything was hunky dory," Maggie recalled. "But then when we went back in the first week of August, that growth had completely stopped."
The Grahams would be referred to Boston with the top hospital complex in the world for this type of issue. But Maggie would have to have weekly checkups in Monroe to make sure she could safely fly and the baby was stable. During one of those checkups, new information came to light. The original due date of Oct. 23 was incorrect; it was really Oct. 19. That is important because the hospital won't do a C-Section over a week early.
But as Baby G continued to develop, keeping tabs on its health became more difficult. As time went on, things like bone structure and cartilage started to harden which made it more difficult to see what was going on in the child's heart development.
Boston Bound
Thomas and Maggie first went up to Boston on Oct. 4 and would not return until the middle of November. They stayed in the heart of the medical district, mere blocks from Fenway Park.
The first thing to do once they got settled in their hotel room, a Residence Inn near the medical district, was to meet with the birthing and cardiology teams for more tests, checkups and to find their way around the complex.
"The whole complex was huge," Thomas said. "It took us about a week to get comfortable moving around and where to go."
Then came the waiting for everyone. Both Thomas' and Maggie's mothers would go up with them and Maggie's father and sister would follow as the due date drew near. For the first two weeks, they played tourist.
"We did a lot of walking, visited Fenway Park, Harvard, Little Italy, all the tourist spots," Thomas recalled. "We went to museums, anything we could find. We were just trying to keep our minds off of everything and enjoy the experience."
Finally Maggie went into labor on Oct. 13. But as goes with this story, nothing would be easy.
Oct. 15 arrives and Baby G has still not been born. Maggie had endured over 50 hours of labor but was not dilating enough to deliver Baby G.
Punch after punch after punch
The Grahams wanted the birth to be a natural process; it would be anything but. Hours passed and Maggie remained in labor and in pain. She was exhausted. Thomas was there but struggled to stay awake. Finally the decision was made -- Baby G would be have to born via C-Section.
"It was another punch," Thomas said. "Throughout the whole process, it was like one punch after another and it seemed to never stop. But we held firm to our faith that God was in control."
Maggie would wake Thomas up right before she was being wheeled out of her room for the C-Section. Groggily, Thomas put on scrubs and called their parents to let them know what was happening.
"Maggie was 100 percent positive through the whole process that Baby G would be a boy," recalled Thomas. "The C-Section went without a hiccup and I'll never forget the look of surprise on Maggie's face when I told her Baby G's name was Stella (their predetermined name for a girl). She just knew it was going to be a boy."
Initially, all was good with Baby G, now named Stella. A doctor from the cardiology department was on hand for the birth and initially there were no issues with Stella. She was bathed and immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Boston Children's Hospital, while Maggie was moved to Brigham and Women's Hospital (both were in the same complex, connected by a series of hallways, tunnels and skywalks).
But then came another punch. Stella's health started to deteriorate shortly after she was transferred to the NICU. She had a severe left ventricular dysfunction, atrial septal defect (ASD), collateral artery and coarctation of her aortic arch.
Two days later, doctors hooked Stella up to a pacemaker. Three days after that, she underwent her first open heart surgery.
A hybrid procedure was performed and Stella's chest would have to be left open for four days.
Meanwhile, Maggie was recovering from her C-Section and would be discharged on Oct. 19.
"That day was terrible for me," Maggie said. "I told her (Stella) happy birthday and saw her for 20 seconds but that was all I saw of her for two days. All I could see on Thomas's face was the stress over everything going on and I couldn't help. I couldn't even get out of bed. The hardest thing for me was being discharged and wheeled out of the hospital with empty arms, overhearing nurses say, `No baby.' That was my darkest day."
During that time, Thomas fought the frustration of desperately wanting to be in two places at once.
"It helped that Maggie's parents were there, but I would be in the room with Maggie and then make the long trek to where Stella was," Thomas said. "I just kept going back and forth between the two places."
As Stella's health rapidly declined, Thomas would have to meet with Dr. Roger Breitbart, their main doctor and point of contact during their stay in Boston, over medical options without Maggie able to be present.
"He told me that this was a sick heart, it wasn't good," Thomas recalled. "I remember sitting in his office and he was telling me about the next step. Dr. Breitbart said that they needed to go in and try this hybrid surgery to see if that would work. If it didn't, he wasn't sure what to do next."
Thomas just wanted him to go to work.
"Look Doc," Thomas told him. "You are the best in the country for a reason. You do what you think we need to do. We have full faith that you are capable of doing whatever is the best option. I know you are going to give us the best shot to get through this deal. My wife and I trust you. I'm not going to sit and ask a lot of questions, let's just get this going."
After four days, the doctors would finally be able to close Stella's chest and attempted to extubate her four days after that, but that would fail. Another punch for the Grahams.
The medical staff sent transplant doctors to talk with Thomas and Maggie during this time, but the Grahams already knew what to do.
"We agreed that we didn't feel comfortable with a heart transplant," Thomas said. "After all this surgery, if we are going to get through it then we are going to get through it. If God doesn't want her to get through it then it won't happen. They only do a certain amount of transplants per year and they are successful, but it makes it a tough life for the child moving forward. We didn't want that for her."
Turning a corner
A second open heart surgery was required on Oct. 30 and everything started to come full circle when they found her arch was obstructed. Normally, it is in the shape of an arch but Stella's was tangled around like a cord. They cut out the windy, tangled part and sewed it together. In a child, this is something smaller than a spaghetti noddle.
"Ever since then, her heart was pumping and things started going really, really well," said Thomas.
Stella would successfully be extubated on Nov. 3 with BiPap and CPAP to follow. On Nov. 6, she was transferred to recovery. Then came the cleanse.
"We had to slowly let her body cleanse itself of all the medicine she was on," Thomas explained. Then it was recovery and getting her to feed. After all that, Stella would only have a small amount of medication to help with her blood flow. She would be discharged and taken home to Louisiana on Nov. 15. In January, she was taken off her final medication.
Stella's Heart of Dallas
In any family, Christmas is a big holiday. That was no different for the Grahams, but Christmas 2014 was even more memorable knowing that they had a new child that was growing stronger by the day.
Thomas and Maggie took Stella to Dallas and the family spent the holiday with Lindsey, celebrating on Dec. 24 just two days prior to Louisiana Tech's Heart of Dallas Bowl win over Illinois at the Cotton Bowl. Thomas would join his LA Tech Family for the team dinner on Christmas Eve before driving up to Lindsey's house in McKinney where they celebrated the holiday that evening.
"It was a big gathering of family and a lot of fun," Thomas said. "What was special was my sister had been collecting all these photos starting from when we went up to Boston. She put a DVD together with some of our favorite songs -- a tribute to the whole process -- and gave it to us. We played it that night and there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
"That was the first time we were really able to look back on everything," Thomas continued. "It was a special gift, very emotional."
The Grahams celebrated a lot that week. A Christmas with their child, a bowl win over Illinois and the blessings that came with having such a strong family supporting them, both within their house and at Louisiana Tech.
"She is strong," Thomas says of Stella now. "My dad says she will be a gymnast because she is rock solid. She has these meat hooks for hands where she grabs things and pulls herself up like it's nothing. She is in the 95th percentile for her height and 90th percentile for her weight."
The Graham's pediatrician tells them that if you didn't know there was a scar under her shirt, you would never know the child was ever sick.
Strength from family
The support the Grahams received from their families continues to this day and not just the families that are blood related. Their church family is constantly asking about Stella. Whole congregations across the country were asked to pray for Stella. The service in Ruston that was held the day after Stella was discharged started with the announcement, "A prayer has been answered, the Grahams are coming home."
A co-worker of Maggie's had the idea of making Stella t-shirts and selling them to raise awareness and help the Grahams. Upon hearing of the idea, the Holtz family immediately picked up the production cost.
Last week, Thomas saw someone he did not know, someone he's never met before in his life wearing a Stella shirt. Former Louisiana Tech head coach Sonny Dykes and his staff would pray for the Graham family in their bible study. A chorus of prayers rang out from north Louisiana.
The biggest statement of the miracle that is Stella came from Dr. Breitbart in Boston. Thomas was speaking with the doctor's assistant who told him, "I have worked with Dr. Breitbart for 20 years. He always says the child is a medical success or that medicine or surgery has done a lot for a child. Stella was the first case in 20 years where I've heard him say, `this child is a miracle.' Never before have I heard him say the word miracle."
That miracle continues to get stronger with each passing day. That miracle loves to smile and dance with a personality that lights up whatever room she is in.
"You can't help but love on her and kiss her," Thomas says of his miracle.
Just another addition to an already rock solid family.
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