A Hug, a Love Story and a Miracle: Young Lombard Couple Overcoming Tremendous Odds

On Cecilia Goudanis’ 25th birthday, she received a hug from her husband Sam. What may seem a commonplace occurrence for many was actually a miracle for the young Lombard couple. Sam Goudanis is currently in Loyola University Medical Center unable to walk, talk or breathe fully on his own.

When Sam first met Cecilia five years ago online, he told her she looked like the girl of his dreams – and he meant it. He was so startled by her similarity to an imaginary character in his nighttime adventures that he just had to meet her.

Stephanie Polvi, a friend of the young couple, recalls, “Cecilia was really nervous about going on a date with a boy that she only knew from the Internet. She brought me along for safety to an arranged meeting at the Naperville River Walk. When Sam invited me to join them, rather than waiting alone in the car, we both knew he was a decent guy.”

Before long, Cecilia and Sam were inseparable; with their own little private endearments: “I love you to the moon and back,” a private code built on hand squeezes and a someday goal of owning a photography studio together.

Cecilia, the shutterbug, agreed to marry Sam when he proposed to her in multiple languages on Christmas Day 2014 and they joyfully made plans for an October 2016 wedding.

Fate intervened in the form of a broken heart – Sam’s heart. Sam was born with transposition of the great arteries, pulmonary stenosis and ventricular septal defect. This means that Sam’s heart does not work right. His arteries aren’t joined to his heart in the normal places and the connections aren’t secure. His atypical anatomy changes the way blood circulates through the body, leaving a shortage of oxygen. As a child, he survived five open heart surgeries – beginning when he was less than a year old.

Eight months after Cecilia and Sam became engaged, heart palpitations sent them to the emergency room at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital. There, doctors discovered that Sam had a dangerous seven centimeter aneurism in his aorta. Though devastated, the Goudanises made a decision to face life head on and moved the wedding up to September 9, 2015, a mere week after that fateful ER visit.

A beautiful backyard wedding at the bride’s childhood home was witnessed by fifteen close friends and family members. The ceremony was followed by a reception for thirty-some guests at the Castle Towers retirement center in Addison, where the groom’s father resides. The senior Mr. Goudanis’ neighbors helped prepare the wedding feast.

Jessica Coleman, the portrait photographer who recorded the event in pictures, posted Sam’s words on her blog, “I’m happy. Gosh, I’m just so happy. I’m happy things turned out this way.”

As a student at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Cecilia didn’t think much about a wedding day in a far-imagined future, but today there’s no doubt that she wouldn’t change a thing. She and Sam are in this for the long run, no matter how hard it may be.

Currently, Sam’s body is trying to heal from open heart surgery on October 7, which was complicated by an irreparable aortic tear, major blood loss resulting in over 30 transfusions, renal failure – which appears to be temporary, cirrhosis of the liver and pneumonia. He is healing, albeit very slowly.

Stephanie Polvi, the couple’s “first date” friend, has started a Go Fund Me page for Cecilia and Sam, neither of whom are able to hold down their jobs during his recovery.

Before surgery Sam found positive inspiration in the words of a song by Minneapolis rockers, Motion City Soundtrack. Cecilia was thrilled when the band messaged her with get well wishes for Sam.

“That was exciting for us,” explained Cecilia, who is looking toward the future. “I think this will give us a better idea of how fragile life is and make us thankful for everything,” she reasoned. “I honestly think there’s no better way that we could have started off our marriage. We have been challenged to the fullest, we’ve been through so much and I thing we can do anything after this,” she shared.

A hug is indeed a small thing, but for Cecilia Goudanis of Lombard, wife of the still critically ill Sam Goudanis, it was indeed the best birthday present ever.

Sam’s Post-Operation Fund page can be found at gofundme.com: http://www.gofundme.com/sampost_opfund.