Allison and Michael Beacham’s daughter Mattison was diagnosed with Biliary atresia, a life-threatening liver condition
Credit: Courtesy of the Beecham family
NEED TO KNOW
- A young girl suffered through numerous scary health ordeals all before she turned 3 years old, including 25 surgeries, a liver transplant and the loss of five of her fingers
- Allison and Michael Beacham’s daughter Mattison was diagnosed with Biliary atresia, a life-threatening liver condition
- “The fact that she kept rising up from her near flatlines meant her soul was that of a warrior,” Allison tells PEOPLE of her child
A young girl suffered through numerous scary health ordeals — including 25 surgeries, a liver transplant and the loss of five of her fingers — all before she turned 3 years old.
Allison and Michael Beacham welcomed their daughter, Mattison, in 2023. “My pregnancy was perfect with no complications or any warning signs,” Allison, 45, tells PEOPLE exclusively.
However, during her daughter’s two-month check-up, Allison says she was told by a “fill-in pediatrician” that she and Michael, 58, needed to take Mattison to the emergency room.
She explains the medical professional was “holding charts indicating poor trajectory in Mattison’s height and weight.”
“They had obviously known something that my husband and I did not about our little peanut,” continues the mom.
Credit: Courtesy of the Beecham family
Once at the ER, Allison recalls, “Specialists blurted out the possibility that Mattie had a rare disease called biliary atresia. We’d never heard of it. But as soon as they told us the prognosis, our shock and unthinkable terror turned into a demand for answers.”
Biliary atresia, according to the Cleveland Clinic, is a life-threatening liver condition in newborns, in which the bile ducts inside or outside the liver are either blocked or damaged.
Credit: Courtesy of the Beecham family
In a lawsuit obtained by PEOPLE, Allison and Michelle claim that the Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies failed to properly address and care for Mattison after her birth. Allison states that their child’s body “was basically being poisoned increasingly without function of her bile ducts.”
She further alleges that “surgical action” was offered “only when it was too late.” Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment. Pediatrix Medical Group, which manages the location, told PEOPLE, “We cannot comment on pending litigation.”
“Mattie passed away nearly 7 times during her journey to a new liver,” Allison tells PEOPLE. “The failure of the Orlando Health hospital system to perform a life-saving surgery called the Kasai within 30 days — not a whopping 64 — meant Mattie had to spend 182 nights in critical care with total organ failure, and much of it in a coma.” (The complaint further alleges that the delay in performing Kasai contributed to her condition.)
Allison adds that her young daughter “endured over 25 emergency surgeries and amassed over 60,000 medical records, and it took 120 doctors and nurses from around the country to contribute to her survival.”
Credit: Courtesy of the Beecham family
“Our baby was alive artificially, but her soul wasn’t,” the mom continues. “The fact that she kept rising up from her near flatlines meant her soul was that of a warrior.”
“She got a Hail Mary liver transplant with just hours left to live, but lost her left hand in the fight,” Allison further explains, referring to a high-risk and last-minute effort to find an organ donor.
Credit: Courtesy of the Beecham family
“For Michael and I, our perspective whipped and pivoted almost instantaneously upon Mattie’s diagnosis,” Allison recalls.
“We became a force — a two-pack,” she adds. “Everything else we used to allow to worry us, agitate us, excite us and scare us became irrelevant.”
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“Our professions that we’d centered our lives around were put on hold for the first time in our lives,” continues Allison, who works as a talk show host and an anchor/reporter, while Michael serves as the president of California Pizza Kitchen.
“We created a fighter, and we owed it to her to show her that we’d persevere as a family and come out on the flip side in an unthinkable way,” the proud mom tells PEOPLE.
Credit: Courtesy of the Beecham family
Allison and Michael have since launched Mattie’s Law in collaboration with AdventHealth to establish universal newborn screening for biliary atresia. In Florida, the legislation passed the state Senate unanimously, with every senator joining as a cosponsor, and lawmakers approved $600,000 for a newborn screening pilot program that kicked off on July 1.
Now, the couple is taking their efforts for their daughter — whom they’ve nicknamed “Miracle Mattie” and entered in Hasbro’s Toddler of the Year contest — nationwide.
“The ‘aha’ moment was hearing and watching a baby with Mattie’s disease die in the hospital room next to us. His parents weren’t there. A precious warrior was taken from us, and Mattie was statistically next,” Allison says.
“This is a fixable issue,” she continues. “Not a cure, but early diagnosis and a corrective surgery by 30 days of life gives children a 65% chance of native liver survival. Every day after is a 2% drop. The average age of diagnosis in the U.S. right now, tragically, is 65 days, and the test that can identify the disease is a simple adaptation of a test that is already done on every newborn today.”
“By implementing Mattie’s law nationally, we will save 50 to 75 babies’ lives, and we will save $250 to $300 million per year in avoided or delayed transplants,” adds Allison. “We want to make sure the next Mattie is found in time.”
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