“Hope” was the theme of the 14th annual Chad Greenway Day to REACH football camp in Hutchinson this past Friday, and as Greenway and Chad Harlander, the camp’s organizer, explained, hope comes in many forms.
For the parents of the 300 campers in attendance that day, their hope was for their children to grow up strong and to be positive role models.
“We are challenging you … to get out, work hard, do the right thing, treat the person next to you the right way,” Harlander told campers gathered in Hutchinson High School. “You guys are the future.”
But for others, hope is an immediate thing, a feeling necessary to make it through each day. One such family is that of 10-year-old Sam Schumann of Hutchinson, who was named Camp MVP, in keeping with the camp’s 14-year tradition of giving back to those in need in the community.
Sam was born with a congenital heart defect that required five open-heart surgeries when he was young. But now Sam is facing down another battle as doctors say he needs a heart transplant.
Sam’s parents, Stacey and Mark, knew this day would come, but after his surgeries, they were hopeful it would be decades before that was necessary. Things started to decline last summer, however. The family had been making trips to Children’s Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis every six months, but were asked to start going every three months. Then in November Sam had to have a catheter put into his heart, a procedure that originally wasn’t planned for at last another year.
“His heart function kept decreasing on his echoes, they could see that it wasn’t pumping as good as it should,” Stacey said.
On May 5, the Schumanns received the difficult news that Sam would be listed for a heart transplant.
“We knew that he’d need a heart transplant, but usually the kids that go through the surgeries that he’s gone through, they say the average is usually late 20s early 30s,” Stacey said. “Even back in November they thought he would need one in his early teens, so from November to May it went from late teens to now.”
As if that news wasn’t difficult enough, Sam has Type O blood, which complicates the matter. While people with Type O blood are universal donors, they are not universal recipients. Sam must have a Type O heart, but only about 40% of the population is Type O blood.
“So when an O heart comes up it can got to anybody that would be a match,” Mark said.
While day-to-day life can be difficult, the Schumanns pointed to the thoughtfulness of their community as a source for much of their hope.
“Being in Hutchinson, it’s just a great town that supports a lot of people, but you really do feel all the love,” Stacey said. “We’ve gotten letters from people we don’t even know that have heard from somebody else who heard from somebody else what we’re going through and just sent a card. And on those random days when you’re feeling a little down and you get a card from somebody that says they’re praying for you and hoping for the best for you, that means the world.”
The $7,500 the Schumanns received from the Chad Greenway Day To REACH Camp will help the family during its many trips to Children’s now and, hopefully, when it is time for Sam’s transplant. For his part, Sam was less worried about a new heart and more worried about his upcoming role in a school play.
“It was scary to be up in front of all those people,” he said about being at the camp,” and I’m going to be in a play, so now I know what to expect.”
While Stacey and Mark admit it has been both mentally and physically exhausting — trips to Children’s every six weeks, answering every phone call no matter what time of day it is because it might be the call when Sam gets his new heart — they say they haven’t given up on their son’s future.
“You have to have hope,” Stacey said, “otherwise where do you go with that thought.”
