23 Mar The Moore and Helmerich Families Create Community

At the Ronald McDonald House, the House becomes a home, caring creates community and strangers become lifelong friends.

As the Moores rushed baby Amelia to Oklahoma City for surgery, they remembered overhearing hospital staff talking about ‘the other baby’ in need of urgent medical care. That other baby was Parker, whose parents, Faith and David, were navigating their own crisis. During her early days at the House, Faith kept to herself, that is until she met Krystine, whom she calls “the friendliest human you could ever meet.” Both children were in the cardiac unit but on different floors, and both families, facing frightening situations, quickly forged a fast friendship. “We just kept running into her, and next thing you know, we’re texting every day, and we still text every single day.”

The Moores

The Moore Family (pictured above); Tim, Krystine, and Amelia in Claremore – 189 nights stayed

After meeting at church, Krystine and Tim Moore quickly fell in love and got married. At ages 35 and 40, they were excited to start a family. After a smooth pregnancy, Krystine gave birth to baby Amelia.

Four days later, something just felt off, and Krystine found herself praying in the shower. “I said God, if there’s something going on, just kind of nudge me to take her in if we need to.” The sign she was looking for came soon after. “I was trying to feed her a bottle, and she spit it up. And just the way it looked, and the way it happened, I knew it wasn’t right, and we needed to go.”

At the hospital, the Moores expected to hear that Amelia was a little dehydrated, or maybe even that everything was fine. Instead, Krystine says, “They had a trauma room set up, and they just grabbed Amelia.” As the medical team worked on Amelia, the Moores prayed, cried and hoped for the best. Finally there was news. Amelia was born with life-threatening congenital heart disease. Two days later she was rushed to Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, hours away, for a series of critical surgeries.

Facing months of hospitalization, the Moores worried. Would they have to move? How could they afford months in a hotel? Fortunately, they immediately secured a spot at the Ronald McDonald House. “Besides our faith, one of the most important things was, for us, having somewhere to go. For our mental health, sleep and having somewhere to lay your head is so important,” Tim said.

The Helmerichs

The Helmerich Family; David, and Parker, Faith in Tulsa – 338 nights stayed

Parker Helmerich, a happy, healthy toddler, underwent a heart transplant when he was almost one year old — the first pediatric heart transplant in Oklahoma in more than three decades. When he was born, his parents, Faith and David, had no indication he even had a heart defect, much less that he would need a new heart. Soon, though, Parker was diagnosed with pulmonary stenosis, a narrowing of the pulmonary valve that could be corrected with a catheter procedure. “With the original prognosis, they were thinking he’d be in the hospital for two weeks max,” David said. The Helmerichs knew about Ronald McDonald House but didn’t want to take up a room since they thought they’d all be home soon.

“In Parker’s case, during his procedure, it was just a lot worse than they expected. They weren’t able to fix it. He coded during the cath procedure and required 34 minutes of CPR. They were able to bring him back to us praise the Lord,” Faith said. It soon became clear that Parker’s only option was a heart transplant. The Helmerichs settled into the House and began their seven-month wait. “You don’t know how long you’re going to have to wait,” she said. “I think we would have had to make the decision to move to Oklahoma City and completely uproot our lives. Having the Ronald McDonald House as an option was just a miracle and provided us a home away from home where we could stay and be super close to Parker.”

For David, the House was a game changer. “When you look at the whole picture, three quarters of my worries are, where we’re going to stay? What are we going to eat now? What? What is the next day going to look like? And [with RMHC] all those worries are just set aside.”