"Finally, he started throwing up real bad, and I noticed he started getting real dark and pale," said his grandmother, Brenda Foster.
His family learned the boy had a rare lung condition that he inherited and it was affecting his heart.
"They said there wasn't anything they could do for him,” Foster said. “They gave him 48 hours to live."
The family refused to give up and the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston accepted the boy.
Justin was flown in on a medical flight, which was a risk because he could have died during transit.
"One thing, we trust in God,” Foster said. “If God wanted to take him, we were still going on that journey."
He was rushed into heart surgery.
Doctors called the boy "Big Duce" because he was putting up a good fight.
His heart is better, but he still needs a double lung transplant and will likely spend months in the hospital before he can come back home to Charlotte.
"Some days it looked like a miracle,” Foster said. “Some days it looked like it was just dark. We just kept on and kept on praying and having faith."
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