Liam, the lion-hearted toddler, needs a new kidney. But he has courage. William and Vanessa Houck\u2019s 16-month-old suffers from the rare Eagle-Barrett syndrome \u2014 sometimes referred to as prune-belly syndrome \u2014\u00a0and is in need of a kidney transplant, they said. The disease, which affects about one in 40,000 births \u2014 mostly in boys \u2014 forces Liam to spend 12 hours a day on dialysis and three hours a day being fed though a tube. Vanessa Houck said that despite all the discomfort, her child is “the happiest and is crazy about\u00a0lions.” The word “roar” was among the first he spoke. William Houck is a Marine captain who flies a C-130 Hercules. Vanessa was an Air Force tanker pilot but received a hardship separation to take care of the couple\u2019s son. The couple has insurance through the military TRICARE program, but recently learned the remaining out-of-pocket expenses for their baby\u2019s lifesaving operation could reach $50,000. As a result, Point Loma\u2019s Cup of Yo yogurt shop in the Fresh & Easy shopping center on Catalina Boulevard has decided to help raise money for Liam. Veronica Eckert\u2019s (Yo\u2019s co-owner) father is a liver transplant recipient, which prompted her to donate some of the store\u2019s profit and to begin collecting donations\u00a0for the child. To date, five people have offered to donate a kidney to Liam and thousands of dollars have already been raised. \u00a0 For more information, call (619) 885-0700, or visit the Children\u2019s Organ Transplant Association website at www.cotaforliamh.com. Donations may also be made directly at Cup of Yo, located at 955 Catalina Blvd.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liam, the lion-hearted toddler, needs a new kidney. But he has courage. William and Vanessa Houck\u2019s 16-month-old suffers from the rare Eagle-Barrett syndrome \u2014 sometimes referred to as prune-belly syndrome \u2014\u00a0and is in need of a kidney transplant, they said. The disease, which affects about one in 40,000 births \u2014 mostly in boys \u2014 forces […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":292953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Fundraising begins for toddler in need of new kidney","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}