SILVERHILL, Ala. – For all intents and purposes Sam Byrd is a normal, happy 5 month old baby boy.

“He is such great, wonderful baby,” said his mother LaTisha Byrd. “He is a happy baby.”

Before Sam was born, LaTisha and her husband Richard, residents of Silverhill, didn’t know there was anything wrong. As far as they knew, Sam was a healthy, 6-pounds 7-ounce baby boy when he was born on April 5. It wasn’t until about five hours later, LaTisha says, they received the news.

“He was born at 2:30, they came and told me at about 7:30 that he had a heart murmur,” she said.

By 9:30, Sam was rushed to USA Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Mobile, where he would spend the next nine days. Sam would ultimately be diagnosed with tetralogy fallot, a heart defect.

“There’s a lot more to it, but basically he was born with a 5 millimeter hole in his heart,” LaTisha said, “and his pulmonary artery was restricted. Basically when he would get stressed and start to cry, he would turn blue.”

At 10 weeks old, Sam was taken to UAB Medical Center in Birmingham where he underwent open heart surgery.

“It was a full-blown open heart surgery with chest tubes, a pace maker and all those things,” she said.

Sam would spend another nine days at UAB before being released and so far, the surgery has done its job.

“He’s great now,” LaTisha Byrd said. Doctors say he might have to have another heart valve replacement surgery in about 10 years or so. “It really depends on how well his heart does between now and then.”

And while the Byrds are happy to have their baby home, they are faced with mounting medical bills.

“I’ve learned a lot about insurance over the past five months,” LaTisha said.

While insurance has paid around $140,000 in medical expenses, the Byrds have had to pay nearly $9,000 out of their own pockets, she said, and still have yet to receive notice from UAB on how much they will end up owing for his surgery.

LaTisha works as a postal employee in Daphne. Richard quit his job as a truck driver for Buffalo Rock/Pepsi in Mobile to help take care of Sam and works part-time in real estate. The mounting debt has been somewhat overwhelming.

But thanks to the generosity of family, friends and even strangers, the Byrds will have a chance to offset some of those costs.

Beginning Thursday at 7 a.m., the Byrds will begin a benefit yard sale on vacant property near their home in Augusta Place Subdivision, located at the intersection of County Road 9 and White Road (County Road 48) in Silverhill.

Items donated include baby clothes, children’s clothes, all sizes of adult clothes, books, household items, furniture and toys.

The yard sale will continue beginning at 7 a.m. each day through Sunday, Sept. 4.

“Sunday will probably be just whatever’s left over and cleanup,” LaTisha Byrd said. The sale will probably end around noon on Sunday and whatever items are left over will be donated to charity, she said.

Proceeds from the event will go to pay Sam’s medical bills not covered by insurance, she said.

And while Sam continues on the road to recovery, he will forever have a reminder of his ordeal, a surgery scar that runs the length of his chest.

“He has gone through quite an ordeal,” LaTisha Byrd said, “and he has the battle scars and a testament to start life with.”