Meshell Northcutt was heartbroken when she learned the 14-year-old son of her best friend Gena Eirich was hospitalized and fighting for his life.
“I couldn’t wrap my mind around it,” said the Hahnville woman. “For Nicholas to be diagnosed with heart failure … she said he needed a transplant, and all I could ask was ‘What do you mean?’ because it was so surreal.”
Thankfully, things have turned for the better for Nicholas, who is finally resting back at home, the recipient of a brand new heart.
But the Eirich family endured much anxiety over many twists and turns during their nearly month-long journey, and Northcutt decided to do whatever she could to help her close friend — and found more people were willing to join with her to do so than she’d ever expect.
Northcutt set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to help the family, and after less than a month online, it was shared 34,000 times on Facebook and raised nearly $33,000 to help offset the family’s rapidly accumulating medical costs.
“So many people really stepped up to help,” said Northcutt, who noted she met Eirich in the 8th grade and the two have been best friends since. “And not just through the GoFundMe … people dropped off checks to the house, gave blood.
“We kept sharing it and sharing it and sharing it … I couldn’t imagine the response we received.”
That response didn’t take long either. Within seven hours, $10,000 had been pledged through the page.
“It was people we know and people we don’t … it was amazing,” Northcutt said. “It really makes you see there’s still so much good in what’s a pretty tough world right now. I think people were captivated by the story and wanted to help.”
That story, in many ways, began years ago when Nicholas was born with a congenital heart defect that required open heart surgery at just nine days old.
“He is a miracle baby,” Northcutt said.
He not only survived, but appeared to be totally healthy, though he has gone through routine medical checkups in order to ensure it remained the case. It did until Jan. 15, when Gena and her husband, Ross, learned Nicholas’ heart was failing. He was immediately transferred to Ochsner’s main campus hospital in need of a heart transplant.
“The doctors said that it was like he’d been hit with lightning twice,” Northcutt said. “It’s almost unheard of and nobody’s really sure why it happened.”
Furthermore, it was unknown, initially, if he was even a candidate to be placed on the transplant list due to a complication caused by his condition: his lungs were struggling because of his weakened heart, making it questionable if he could make it through the transplant. It was ultimately determined he would be able to endure it, though there were a few scares that his body was rejecting the heart.
But, once again, Nicholas has proven he is a survivor.
Eirich was unable to work for the most part during all of this, staying by her son’s side—something that will effectively continue as Nicholas will need someone caring for him for 24 hours for at least six months, as his body adjusts and heals. It’s all put a financial strain on the Slidell family of five, with Nicholas one of the couple’s three young boys.
“It’s been horrible for her,” Northcutt said of her friend. “She calls every day and … I know, emotionally, she’s just gone through so, so much. Now we look at everything and … it’s like, was this really life for a month? It’s so surreal.”
Understanding that, Northcutt started her fundraising effort to lessen the more tangible burdens.
“It’s impossible to wipe all of it away, but life also has to go on, and they have two other children,” Northcutt said. “And I think seeing so many people who care, who want to help, I think it at least made a horrible situation a tiny bit better.”
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