HOUSTON—When Lt. Larry Weaver reports to work at Porter Fire Station 124 in Montgomery County his heart is usually somewhere else.
His emotions are focused on his 12-year-old son Branden who has been hospitalized for the last three months at Texas Children’s Hospital waiting for a life-saving heart transplant. Born with a heart defect, a heart that is twisted backwards, he is too sick to leave the hospital. Doctors plan to keep him at Texas Children’s until a transplant can happen.
A gift of a heart is what he needs. Gifts from the heart have helped carry the Weaver’s this far.
“This is probably one of the hardest battles I’ve ever been through, emotionally,” Weaver told 11 News. “It takes a toll on a guy.”
That toll is made worse by some unfinished business. Weaver was building a house for his family mostly on his own—a day, a dollar, and a piece at a time. But hospital trips, weeks and months at his son’s bedside, and shifts at work keep him too busy to finish the house. So he stays in a travel trailer in the front yard putting the home construction project on hold.
“Actually several departments, several surrounding departments have stepped up,” said friend and fellow Porter firefighter Steve Polonski.
Firefighters began to answer the call to help. They became painters, drywallers, carpenters, even furniture movers for the tables, couches and beds donated earlier this month. And they covered his shifts at work so he could take turns with Branden’s mother and stay at his son’s side.
“It means the world to me,” said Weaver. “For them to turn around and do it for me is overwhelming in joy. I mean it does a lot for me.”
But there is still work to be done. The kitchen and bathrooms are still unfinished. There is no air conditioning and no working septic system. Branden doesn’t yet have a safe and finished home to come home to.
“We’ve done everything we can,” said Polonski. “The project just kind of got away from us financially.”
So this small fire department hopes a few other people can step forward to help a family already struggling with the emotions that will come with the gift of a new heart.
“That’s the hardest deal,” said Weaver. “It’s not so much he’s sick, it’s what somebody’s got to give up for us to receive.”
But as for receiving gifts from the heart, Weaver’s fellow firefighters are leading the way.
If you can help, contact the Porter Fire Department at 281-354-6666. Donations can also be made to the Weaver Family Benefit Account at any Amegy Bank.
