Meet the Ruf family! Dan and Kelli were thrilled when the found out they would welcome their fourth child, Claire, into their family. They learned her journey would look a little different when a routine ultrasound determined Claire has a condition called heterotaxy syndrome. It is a rare birth defect that affects the left-right asymmetry of the body’s visceral organs. It causes these organs to be missing, misplaced, malformed, or multiplied. Although Claire’s darling smile and twinkling eyes don’t reveal it, her little body battles abnormalities in many organs including her lungs and stomach, and most significantly her heart. Claire was born with eight major heart defects and at just seven hours old had a miraculous life saving stent procedure.
Claire was able to spend the first few months of life at home with many appointments, therapies, and a close watch from doctors. However, she recently spent a month at Primary Children’s Hospital after going into respiratory failure following a routine procedure. This fall she will travel from Utah to Boston Children’s Hospital. There she will have an open heart surgery called a biventricular repair that will fix all her heart defects at once. The Ruf family plans to be in Boston for several weeks as Claire recovers.
To show our love and support for Claire and her family, Walli donated the net profit from one day of sales to the Ruf family to help cover the cost of Claire’s upcoming surgeries.
About the Walli Gives Back Program:
When Walli Cases was created, owners Nick and Jenna Emery were recently married and both emerging from what they would describe as the darkest times of their lives. They are both passionate about reaching out to others in need because of the huge outpouring of love and support they received during their trials, including Jenna becoming a widow with an 8-month-old son and more recently losing her mother to cancer, and Nick going through divorce. When they created Walli cases, they wanted to help others feel the same hope and encouragement, and the Walli Gives Back program was created. Each month, Walli chooses a family to support.
This quote by Natalie Norton sums up why they are both devoted to "giving back" to others in their time of need: "There is always a light. Find it. Follow it. And then turn around and shine it as brightly as you can for those still feeling their way through the darkness."