4-year-old born with Halloween birthday treated with public safety parade before surgery

Four-year-old Jeremiah Lilly will be in a coma next week. But first, for his birthday this Halloween, he got a parade.

Dozens of police cars, several fire trucks, tow trucks, a motorcycle club and more citizens drove by Jeremiah’s home as he watched in his firefighter outfit, according to a Spokane Police Department news release.

“You have fought four years for every breath you have taken,” Jeremiah’s mother, Joelle Lilly, wrote on her Facebook page. “I love you and will fight for you with my every breath so one day you will be able to breathe without struggle.”

His surgery in Seattle will be “massive,” Jeremiah’s aunt Brandee Muszynski wrote on his family’s GoFundMe page.

“They have to open both the front and back,” Muszynski wrote.

Surgeons will use cartilage from his ribs to rebuild his airway because it has not grown since his prior surgery at 15 months old. Then he’ll be placed on a ventilator and feeding tube for at least a week.

Jeremiah’s parents, Joelle and Jeremy Lilly, will be with him in Seattle for at least two weeks and Jeremiah will be in the ICU for at least one week in the induced coma. Before his breathing tube can come out, he will have a second procedure. Then he’ll have another procedure four to six weeks after the initial surgery, Muszynski wrote.

Jeremiah was born with a restricted airway, soft voicebox and soft structures in his lungs, Muszynski wrote. He’s since been diagnosed with six conditions, which explain how his airway collapses and spasms.

Jeremy does not qualify for protection under the Family and Medical Leave Act, Muszynski wrote, due to not being with the same employer for a year. In the description of their GoFundMe, though, Muszynski wrote that the family understands not everyone can afford to donate, but the family is grateful for “prayers, thoughts and good vibes.”