'Fighting for his life': GoFundMe supports Auburn infant with rare condition

Currently, Cristian Lucas Malone-Martinez is in Strong Memorial in Rochester with his mother, Taylor Malone, 25, of Auburn. She told The Citizen on Monday that he is on life support after the right side of his heart failed. If he doesn't get better soon, doctors will have to place him on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine for the second time. He spent his first 50 days on one.

Malone hopes to transfer Cristian to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, site of the first unit in the U.S. dedicated to the cause of his condition: congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

A defect that occurs in one in 2,500 births, it begins when the diaphragm doesn't form completely. In Cristian's case, that led his stomach, intestines and spleen, and part of his liver, to ascend into his chest. His heart was displaced to the right, and his left lung only had enough room to develop to half its size. He's now had nine surgeries to address these complications, most recently a tracheostomy.

Malone found the hospital after Cristian's defect was diagnosed at 24 weeks in the womb. The team of specialists gave him an 85% chance of survival, compared to a closer hospital that gave him 50%. So she and Cristian's father, Damion Martinez, went to St. Petersburg to bring their son into the world. They were there 264 days, said Malone, who stayed in a Ronald McDonald House at the hospital.

"It's hard, but as a mom, you have to deal with it and pray for the best," she said. "I have to be strong for him because I'm his advocate, his voice. I have to make sure he gets the best care possible."

During those 264 days, the hospital's team got to know "literally the inside and out of Cristian," Malone said. That's why she wants to take him back there. But to do that, she has to raise money to sign up for COBRA, the federal program to continue health insurance after job loss, as she had to resign from her position as a nurse at The Commons on St. Anthony in Auburn March 8. She had been out of work since Feb. 1, when she brought Cristian to Strong. She and Martinez considered adding the infant to his workplace insurance, but that would have cost even more money than COBRA, she said. 

Luckily, Malone said, she made more connections at Johns Hopkins than just doctors. She also became "the best of friends" with another mother there, Allyson Birdsong. Together, they're part of what Malone called "the CDH family," which has been a source of support during Cristian's struggle. Birdsong even started a GoFundMe to help Malone pay for COBRA so she can transfer her son.

The campaign has a goal of $15,000, and has raised $10,111 from 93 donors as of Monday evening. Malone doesn't know how long Cristian will be in the hospital, but is grateful for every dollar.

"I can't thank everybody enough for helping give my son the best chance of turning around from all of this and fighting for his life," she said. "I'm more appreciative than I can even begin to say."