Aidden Tilly is a 8th grader at Spectrum Middle School with a unique story to his classmates. Aidden was born with hypo-plastic left heart syndrome, meaning the right side of his heart does not work quite properly.

“The right side of his heart doesn’t fully work if at all. So, the left side of his heart goes into overtime basically,” Aidden’s older brother, Wyatt Tilly, said. “After so long, the left side of the heart gets so stressed out and he goes into heart failure, which he’s in right now.”

Aidden is currently waiting for a heart donation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Aidden has been in the hospital full time since before Halloween and is expected to stay through the holidays as well.

“It could be tomorrow, it could be year from now, we don’t really know,” Wyatt said.

Throughout Aidden’s hospital stay, he has seen lots of visitors of friends and family. One of those special people is Zeke Hines, a fellow 8th grader and best friend of Aidden. Zeke visits Aidden as often as he can bringing lots of fun and positivity with him.

“We play games, watch movies,” Zeke said. “[We play] Minecraft or Roblox.”

Wyatt is also a frequent visitor of Aidden and visits as often as time permits.

“I’ve visited him down in the hospital, I’ll play games with him, I’ll call him, it’s small stuff like that that really make a difference for him,” Wyatt said.

Spectrum has shown a lot of support and encouragement for Aidden during this time and the family asks that a way to support Aidden during this time is to take a minute and send him cards and letters of encouragement on Aidden’s Caring Bridge Site linked here; Aidden Tilly’s CaringBridge.