Timothy did really well over the next few days. He did swell up more after this surgery, so it looked like someone had just beat him up. Poor lil guy! Timothy took a little bit longer recovering this time, but was able to come home December 23, 1999. We were so happy and couldn't have asked for anything better for Christmas!! Everything went pretty well over the next few weeks until about the middle of January when he started having feeding problems again. My heart sank because I knew that something was wrong again. All that I could remember was his surgeon telling us that if it happened again there would be nothing that they could do.

We took Timothy to the hospital and they immediately did an echocardiogram, an ultrasound of his heart. It showed that the pressures in his heart was up again. They called Dr Austin, his surgeon, and he told them that there was nothing more that could be done. I started thinking right then, that this was it. Our little boy was going to die and there was nothing that they could do to help him. Unfortunately, I was right. Timothy had what is called Pulmonary Vein Stenous, which meant that the veins coming from his lungs back to his heart were closing. They didn't give us a time period yet because it depended on how long it would be before they closed.

We took Timothy back to his cardiologist and they told us that his veins were closing very rapidly. Joe asked Dr Keller how much time did we have. He told us a couple of weeks to a couple of months. That was so devastating to hear. Our precious little boy was going to die soon and there was nothing we could do to stop it. We had to put Timothy on a feeding tube through his nose to feed him because he couldn't eat no more. We also had hospice come in and help us. Timothy was taking two medicines twice a day, one three times a day and another six times a day. We also had to feed him eight times a day. We had to get schedules set up where someone was awake with him all the time. Joe's mother helped us more than we could have ever hoped. She didn't feel comfortable feeding him, but she would take care of him in-between feedings and medicines so that we could get a little rest. It is really hard to get any rest knowing that your child could die at any time.

On February 16th, Timothy's hospice nurse came by to see how he was doing. Timothy had gotten to the point where he could barely stay awake for 5 minutes and his hands and feet were always cold. We asked her how much time did we have. She told us that his hands and feet were so cold because there was no blood flowing to them no more. His body was conserving what blood it did get from his lungs for his organs. She told us we had only a day or two left. Even though we knew he was going to die, this hit very hard for both of us. I couldn't sleep anymore and just wanted to hold him. The next day Timothy was still very sleepy but he still managed to wake up for short periods of time to look at us. There were no more beautiful smiles, all he did was pretty much stare. We had to cut back on what we were feeding him because his body couldn't digest what he had. I had been up all night with him and at about 4pm that afternoon, Joe made me lay down to get some sleep. At about 8pm I woke up for no reason. Something just told me to wake up. Timothy was upstairs with his Grandmother and Joe had fallen asleep on the couch. I was trying to wake Joe up for his next feeding and medicine when Cindy came running down the stairs. She said that Timothy had gotten stiff. I immediately took him and he wasn't breathing anymore. His little heart was slowly beating but he wasn't breathing. Within a few minutes, his little heart finally stopped. There I was holding our precious son in my arms, and he was gone. Timothy Dakota Hollon passed away in my arms at about 8:30pm on February 17th. I was I guess in shock because it didn't really hit me until I called my best friend Joy, and then I lost it. Still holding Timothy, I told her that our son had become and angel.