Kennedy Gunter

    CHUNKY – One might not think a pumpkin patch and a children’s hospital would have much in common, but when Lazy Acres and Blair E. Batson team up, it’s all about the kids.

    See what it’s all about Saturday, as Lazy Acres kicks off their 2014 season with a 9 a.m. ribbon cutting and Dedication of the Maze to the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Batson Children’s Hospital. Along with media and hospital representatives, Fred and Lori Poole of Meridian will be on site Opening Day with their hot air balloon. Weather and wind conditions permitting, tethered ballon rides will be available for a limited time to those seeking an aerial view of the 2014 “We Love Kids” maze, which features a hot air balloon in itself.

    “My family and I are very excited about the upcoming season, and we are honored to dedicate our maze this year to Batson Children’s Hospital,” said Michael May, who with his wife, Cathy, and daughter, Mikayla, now runs the farm established by his parents. 

    “We have partnered with Batson and will be donating a portion of every weekend admission this season to help fund the life-saving treatments and support services that the hospital provides for Mississippi’s children and their families,” May said.

    Batson Children’s Hospital is a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital and the state’s only hospital devoted to sick and injured children of all ages. According to their website, www.ummchealth.com, the hospital treats about 150,000 children each year.

    Patients come from all of Mississippi’s 82 counties to receive comprehensive medical care for everything from common childhood illnesses to serious trauma and life-threatening or chronic illnesses. The hospital provides care in more than 30 specialty areas, including newborn medicine, pediatric cardiology, neurology and surgery. It houses the state’s only pediatric intensive care unit and emergency department along with Mississippi’s only pediatric treatment programs for cancer, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, congenital heart defects and more.

    “Events such as these are vital for Batson Children’s Hospital to continue to offer the very best care to our state’s children,” said Children’s of Mississippi chief operating officer Guy Giesecke. “We’re so grateful to groups like Lazy Acres for their help, not only financially, but in getting the word out about all the great things happening at Batson.”

    Perhaps nobody understands that better than grateful parents Heather and DJ Shelton of Collinsville, as their gear up for their 3-year-old son Garrett’s 13th surgery.

    Born 8 weeks premature with a complex heart defect, Garrett was transported by helicopter to the Batson NICU unit at 5 weeks and had his first surgery at 8 weeks. Having spent 289 days of his first year in the hospital, Garrett was diagnosed at 15 months with DiGeorge Syndrome.

    “I cannot say enough for the cardiac team at at Batson. Everyone – from Dr. Salazar, to the nurses and techs and to the cath labs and nurse practitioners – has been available to us,” Heather said. “From day one, we have been able to pick up the phone and call any of them directly. It’s not just the patients that they take care of … they take care of the whole family.”

    While Garrett continues with weekly therapy sessions at Batson, he is home now for the most part, but the hospital and its staff are still a very big part of the Sheltons’ lives.

    “Batson is our home away from home. Garrett has made tons of progress there, and they are responsible for all of it. He still has a lot to overcome. We’re not done by a long shot, but he’s in very good hands and he has a very bright future ahead of him,” Heather added.

    Likewise, Lawren and Kris Fugitt of Collinsville are grateful for the life-saving surgery and chemo treatments their 8-year-old daughter, Kennedy Gunter, received at Batson. Diagnosed with Non Hodgkins T-cell Lymphoma last December, Kennedy is now in remission and recalls her experience at Batson as nothing but positive.

    “I got all kinds of board games. I got to go to the playroom. I made lots of new friends, and I even got to meet Miss Mississippi and talk on the radio,” Kennedy said, adding that she wants to become a doctor and work at Batson someday.

    “The nurses are very sweet and they took good care of me. I even got a shopping spree after I finished my treatments and I bought an American Girl doll.”

    As a parent of a sick child, the family experience at Batson is second to none, Lawren agreed.

    “We are there so much that they have become like family to us. From the second you walk in, they make it fun for the kids. It’s not a sad hospital experience at all. After a month-long stay, when it was time for us to go home, Kennedy did not want to leave,” she said, noting that they still return to Batson for monthly chemo treatments, even in remission.