Hours after Jimmy Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearny welcomed their son Billy in April, the medical staff at the hospital discovered he had heart defects that required emergency surgery. Billy ended up pulling through the heart surgery and although he'll need another operation soon, he's doing well. He even joined his parents this weekend at a benefit for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, an organization devoted to fighting childhood cancer.
"Billy is doing well," Jimmy told Us Weekly on Saturday, Sept. 9. "He's got to have another operation soon but he's doing well."
Jimmy added that his son "seems strong," joking that he "pulls hair, that's for sure."
Billy suffers from the congenital heart disease Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia, a condition Jimmy explained in a monologue on his show after the initial, three-hour surgery, which he referred to as "the longest three hours of my life."
"On Monday morning, Dr. Vaughn Starnes opened his chest and fixed one of the two defects in his heart," Jimmy told his TV audience after the surgery this past spring. "He went in there with a scalpel and did some kind of magic that I couldn't even begin to explain. He opened the valve, and the operation was a success."
At the time, Jimmy also said Billy would need a second surgery in three to six months, plus a "hopefully, non-invasive third procedure" in his early teens.
Since he went public with news of his son't health condition, Jimmy has also focused on how lucky he feels to have health insurance that allowed him to get his son the care he needed to survive. The comic has since tweeted requests to "remind your congresspeople" why all Americans deserve access to treatment like the one that saved Billy's life.
Jimmy's wife Molly has been similarly vocal, sharing photos of Billy and pointing out that his pre-existing condition would prevent him from accessing health coverage under the plans Congress has proposed to replace the Affordable Care Act.
In addition to Billy, Jimmy and Molly share a daughter, Jane. Jimmy also has two adult children, Kevin and Katie, from a previous marriage.