Heavy/Getty Hallmark star Nikki DeLoach
Longtime Hallmark star Nikki DeLoach celebrated her six-year-old son Bennett’s bravery after he completed a sleep study at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA), where he’s undergone multiple surgeries since he was born with life-threatening congenital heart defects (CHDs) in September 2017.
“Been trying to figure out a restricted breathing issue and it’s finally time for Benny’s sleep study,” DeLoach wrote in her Instagram stories the night of May 31 2024, over a photo of Bennett with wires and sensors fastened to his forehead, temples, and chest.
DeLoach, who is also mom to 10-year-old son William, continued, “He asked the nurse a million questions (good job advocating Benny!!) and made the observation that her job must be very tiring for her because she has to stay up all night every night. So grateful for our doctors and nurses at @childrensla ❤️”
DeLoach’s series of stories about the testing Bennett underwent was the latest insight she’s provided about his condition. The “Curious Caterer” star has openly shared the surgeries and interventions her youngest son with husband Ryan Goodell has undergone, hoping to draw more attention to not only CHDs, but to the hospital they credit with saving Bennett’s life.
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In a second Instagram story posted on June 1, DeLoach shared a photo of Bennett smiling with a mesh wrap around his head and chin to keep the sensors and wires in place.
“He was scared and also brave,” she wrote. “He said he definitely earned his tablet time tomorrow. Yes you did, buddy.”
On her third story, DeLoach shared a photo of Bennett drifting off to sleep with an oxygen tube in his nose and taped to his face, and a large stuffed animal by his side.
“I’ve learned so much about what it means to be brave from Bennett and from all the kids I’ve had the honor of knowing at @childrensla,” DeLoach captioned the image. “They go through the hardest of the hard and do so with such spirit and strength. It’s humbling and life changing to witness. #belikebenny ❤️💪”
The following morning, DeLoach posted a car selfie, giving the thumbs up while Bennett smiled from his car seat in the back of her car.
Beneath the photo, she posted, “Sleep study complete! We’ll know results in a few weeks. I feel like a got hit by a dumpster truck but Bennett was incredible! Thank you @childrensla for always taking the best care of us. We love you!”
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When DeLoach was five months pregnant with Bennett, doctors informed her and Gooddell that he had multiple CHDs and were not sure he would survive, she told People in November 2017.
Tests showed that Bennett had “a ventricular septal defect (or VSD),” which is a small hole in his heart, she told the outlet. They also found Bennett’s aorta was narrow, his coronary artery would have to be moved, and “he had a transposition of his great arteries, which meant the two arteries that go into his heart were going into the wrong chambers.”
Five days after his birth, DeLoach told People, Bennett underwent open-heart surgery at CHLA, explaining that the surgeon “did the impossible by successfully completing procedures that most kids do not survive.”
Bennett has had three heart surgeries in his short life, according to Los Angeles Confidential. Though he is thriving, his condition is something his parents continue to be keenly aware of and that is closely monitored by doctors.
DeLoach is so grateful for the hospital’s help that she’s become president of the foundation’s board of trustees, raising millions of dollars for CHLA. In October 2022, DeLoach got her dear friend Justin Timberlake to headline the foundation’s gala, and in May, she helped raise $500,000 at the Walk and Play LA event that attracted 2,000 attendees.
In a reflection she posted in November 2023 on Instagram, DeLoach wrote, “I will never be able to fully thank CHLA for all they have done and continue to do for us. My son is alive and thriving because of them. We love this place so much.”
CHLA is also the hospital where late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s young son has undergone multiple heart surgeries. , including his third on May 27. After his third surgery, Kimmel posted on May 27 about how much the hospital has meant to his family.
Kimmel wrote, “Walking around this hospital, meeting parents at their most vulnerable, children in pain and the miracle workers who do everything in their considerable power to save them is a humbling experience. We hope you never need CHLA, but if you do – know that they help families regardless of their ability to pay, thanks largely to the Affordable Care Act (another salute to the late Senator John McCain), generous donations from companies like Disney, which I am proud to work for and especially from generous people like you.”