You may have noticed that Jimmy Kimmel has not been on his show this week.
Back in May, Kimmel told everyone for the first time about the complications with his son. His son, William “Billy” John, was born on April 21st of 2017 and had to undergo open heart surgery just days after. Here is that monologue.
The show host has taken this week off to do some post-surgery care for Billy. Kimmel’s boy underwent a second heart surgery on Monday. Kimmel has not posted any updates about his son since the surgery but has tweeted ‘thank yous’ to his guest hosts. What we do know is, ABC announced on Monday in a statement, that Kimmel’s son “had a scheduled and successful heart surgery this morning.”
His 7 month-old son was supposed to received the surgery in late October but the network announced that “due to the common cold” the surgery has to be rescheduled. Billy has Tetralogy of Fallot (TOP) with pulmonary atresia. Pulmonary atresia is a more severe version of TOP, a heart defect. According to the Children’s Hospital, children who have TOP with pulmonary atresia have five heart abnormalities. This abnormalities are things like the aorta being shifted, thicker ventricles, complete obstruction of the valves that connect to the lungs and other complications that affect your cardiac and respiratory systems.
Kimmel has used his experience to build a platform to advocate for health care accessibility. Even as high-profile as Kimmel is, as the parent of a sick child he has seen first-hand how the American health care system treats it’s ill.
The line-up for the show this week still looks great. Friend’s of Kimmel have stepped up to fill-in. Monday, Chris Pratt filled in and other hosts this week include Tracee Ellis Ross, Neil Patrick Harris (tonight) and Melissa McCarthy.
Some of this week’s planned guests are Margot Robbie, Chris Stapleton, Mary J. Blige, Amanda de Cadenet, Miguel, Vanessa Kirby, Jules Sylvester, Octavia Spencer, Dave Franco and Hanson.
