An update on Eduardo Loredo’s medical options

Monique Gabrielle Maes-Salazar opens her sketch book and begins drawing the outline of a human body with a thick, black Sharpie pen. Next to her on the couch, Karina Loredo stares intently at the page, trying to understand a surgery that, she’s been told, could help keep her son alive.

This past summer, Eduardo Loredo was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a serious condition that enlarges the heart and makes it difficult to pump blood effectively.

When Eduardo was released from Children’s Mercy Hospital in October, his doctor wrote a letter suggesting that a heart transplant would be the teenager’s best chance at a normal life.

Last week, Loredo says, Children’s Mercy officials suggested another option.