Trojan Wish: Elliott Fletcher
September 12, 2022 | Trojan Outreach
On Saturday, Sept. 3, USC hosted its first Trojan Wish experience of the 2022 season with six-year-old Elliott Fletcher.
When Elliott was 20 months old, he woke up sick and fussy, and started making troubling noises when he was breathing. His parents, Raquel and Travis, took him to the hospital, where they were told he was in heart failure.
Elliott was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart becomes weak and enlarged and is unable to pump blood properly. Elliott stayed at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles for approximately six months, and spent some of the early days hooked up to a Berlin Heart (surgeons implanted flexible tubes in his heart that extended through the skin and connected to an external pump, which was connected to a 200-pound computerized machine).
In August 2017, Elliott's family learned that a donor heart had become available. The transplant surgery went smoothly, but initially the new heart wasn't pumping strongly enough — a condition called graft dysfunction. After another procedure, Elliott's new heart starting functioning correctly, and on Oct. 4, 2017, the Fletcher Family was finally able to go home.
Five years later, Elliott was invited to spend a special day at USC. The Fletcher Family was treated to a tour of USC's Athletic Building, Heritage Hall, and received a free USC swag bag. They enjoyed a pregame tailgate and got to hang out on the sidelines before the USC football game versus Rice. USC won the game, 66-14, an the Fletcher Family got to experience a carefree day in LA.
For more on Elliott Fletcher, click here.
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When Elliott was 20 months old, he woke up sick and fussy, and started making troubling noises when he was breathing. His parents, Raquel and Travis, took him to the hospital, where they were told he was in heart failure.
Elliott was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart becomes weak and enlarged and is unable to pump blood properly. Elliott stayed at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles for approximately six months, and spent some of the early days hooked up to a Berlin Heart (surgeons implanted flexible tubes in his heart that extended through the skin and connected to an external pump, which was connected to a 200-pound computerized machine).
In August 2017, Elliott's family learned that a donor heart had become available. The transplant surgery went smoothly, but initially the new heart wasn't pumping strongly enough — a condition called graft dysfunction. After another procedure, Elliott's new heart starting functioning correctly, and on Oct. 4, 2017, the Fletcher Family was finally able to go home.
Five years later, Elliott was invited to spend a special day at USC. The Fletcher Family was treated to a tour of USC's Athletic Building, Heritage Hall, and received a free USC swag bag. They enjoyed a pregame tailgate and got to hang out on the sidelines before the USC football game versus Rice. USC won the game, 66-14, an the Fletcher Family got to experience a carefree day in LA.
For more on Elliott Fletcher, click here.
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