A Warwick family is raising awareness to a rare heart defect and their problems while on the pediatric donor list that has their 18-month-old fighting for his life.

The toddler, Wyatt Lopez, has a rare birth defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and is receiving inpatient care at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in New York City.

He’s been there for six months.

“It’s hard to watch the things he’s going through,” says his grandmother, Andrea Muster. “Every day is a fight.”

Muster hasn’t left the boy’s side. She sleeps on a convertible sofa chair in his hospital room and uses the hospital bathroom to bathe.

The boy’s condition causes the left side of his heart to be underdeveloped and has required the boy, who is in heart failure, to be put on the pediatric heart transplant list.

When asked if Wyatt will be able to return home without a new heart, Muster pauses and tearfully says, “No.”

The grandmother says it’s difficult to find a match due to Wyatt’s age and small size. His cardiologist, Dr. Rakesh Singh, says the wait time for donor hearts for children has doubled in the last five years.

“I used to be able to tell families the wait time is about two to four months but more recently, we’ve noticed both here and across the country that the wait times are now closer to the six to nine month mark,” says Singh, who is the medical director of Hassenfeld’s pediatric heart failure and transplant program.

Singh says the number of children on the transplant list has remained roughly the same, roughly 600 to 700 pediatric patients each year, but that there are less pediatric donors due to an overall decrease in trauma and deaths among healthy children. Wyatt has had two open heart surgeries and has suffered a stroke due to his worsening condition. Singh says he’s not sure if the toddler has the time.

“He’s slowly showing more signs of heart failure. He’s not eating as he used to and showing more symptoms of heart failure. We do have other medication we can use but sometimes these patients get sick pretty quickly, and in that case we have to talk about an artificial heart machine,” says Singh.

The toddler lived with his grandparents in Orange County. His grandfather, John Muster, is praying the pair can come home soon.

“It’s stressful. She won’t leave. She isn’t going anywhere until Wyatt is better. That’s what we want,” says John Muster.

The family is hoping for a miracle.

“Treasure every moment,” Andrea Muster says, “because you never know.”

Visit Donate Life to learn more about becoming an organ donor.