I'm the gammy of a beautiful, smart, loving, and caring warrior named Lily. She is 6 years old now. She was born with VACTERL. Some may not know what VACTERL is, so I'll explain. Every letter in VACTERL stands for something.

Lily has the V, A, R, and L.

When she was just 2 weeks old, she had her first of the 30 surgeries she has had so far. They had to break her jaw and move it forward so that she could breathe, as her tongue would fall back and cause her to stop breathing. Lily was born with 1 kidney, she has a hemi vertebrae and a butterfly vertebrae, she is also missing her radius in her left arm and missing two fingers, she has extra ribs, and a cleft palate in the roof of her mouth. She also has a Mickey button in her bladder to help her pee, as she needs to be drained every 2 hours or so. Her urethra is inside her vagina; that's something she will also need repaired, and it is an 8-hour surgery. But for now, they are having to deal with a major back surgery that we knew when she was born she would have to have but weren't expecting it to come so quick. Our tilt in our backs is supposed to be at 0; hers is at 49, and just a few months prior, it was at 45, so it's progressing fast. She will go back in about 6 months to have another scan and to talk about planning this surgery that's an all-day thing and a 4-month recovery for her. Physical therapy, etc. This is gonna cause a lot of financial hardships for them with work, etc., and traveling 2 hours away. This is very hard to deal with for all of us, as nobody wants their children to go through these things. It's a very sad and hard thing to think about right now, as she just started school and is flourishing wonderfully. She has made so many friends and is so smart. She has been through a lot these past 6 years; it never gets easier, that's for sure—it gets harder. We know God's got her and is gonna be with her through this all. Please say a prayer for her, and any amount will help. $1 will help. Sharing this will help and be very appreciated, and we are thankful and blessed to have great family and friends through this all. This will help Ricky and Haley A LOT. They will both be missing work. So I wanna look out for them ahead of the game and know they will have everything they may need along the way.

We will keep things updated along the way. Thanks so much, love to you all...

This is a picture of her back and the section they will remove and replace.