Nathen Steffel posted a heartbreaking request on Reddit over the weekend asking someone to digitally alter this picture of his daughter Sophia who lived only six weeks before passing away last week.
The Ohio father wrote: “My daughter recently passed away after a long battle in the children’s hospital."
reddit.com
“Since she was in the hospital her whole life, we never were able to get a photo without all her tubes. Can someone remove the tubes from this photo?”
The response he received was overwhelming.
Steffel received numerous photoshopped pictures and sketches of his daughter without the hospital equipment.
Writing on Reddit, Steffel said his daughter had a hepatic hemangioma in her liver.
She was apparently on the waiting list for a new liver when she passed away due to complications involving the pressure on her abdomen due to her hemangioma.
Her father revealed he and his wife knew of the condition from an early ultrasound but did not know how bad it would get.
He said Sophia had been at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus before being moved to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center due to the number of liver experts there.
Speaking to BuzzFeed, Steffel said: “I just wanted to reach out to get at least one quality picture. I was amazed how many people responded. We have so many nice pictures now.”
“We are going to hang up a few of our favourite photos and drawings. Also some of the artists were nice enough to mail us the pictures they made.”
He added: “At first there was so many responses I couldn’t even keep up reading them.”
“I stayed up until 3am that night trying to respond to everyone who had seemed to have a similar experience,” Sophia’s father revealed.
“It helped knowing that others cared enough to stop whatever they were doing in their own lives to either send me a picture or just their condolences.
“It’s just awesome that this story and her pictures have touched so many people.”
What a touching thing for people to do. I suppose it's not all just doom and gloom on the internet.
