Thursday, February 08, 2007

building awareness

First of all, thanks to those who've written to me about our cardiology visit. It means much to feel supported. We're hopeful it will be just a couple of days out of our lives...

The timing of the post was good though in light of the following:

There are many folks in our community of parents of children with Congenital Heart Defects who work hard to bring awareness of CHDs to others. This week in Virginia, it's officially CHD Awareness Week, declared in honor of a little boy whose mom is a member of our local support group. Corbin had hlhs, same defect as Heidi, and he succumbed to multiple complications after at least 7 open heart surgeries (it might have been nine, but I can't quite remember) and many months of hospitalization. His little body just couldn't do it anymore.

Why awareness? I don't want to get too loud on this issue, but just two facts:
1) Of every 100 children born, one will have a heart defect.
2) There are over 40,000 people living with a CHD in the USA.

The medical community is only just starting to understand what might cause some heart defects. I dream of a day when these illnesses can be prevented, as no parent should have to go through what Corbin's family had to endure.

'Nuff said, have a great CHD Awareness Week. I hope to get more time to post on this, but don't hold your breath as visitors are coming...

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posted by K. @ 8:35 PM   2 comments

2 Comments:

At 10:10 PM, Blogger Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Thanks so much for sharing with us some of your life as the Mom of someone who has a congenital heart defect. I once taught a child with a different defect than Heidi, but it was also serious. Until I taught this child, I had no idea how common CHDs are.

Keep your chin up--and I pray that it is only a few days out of your lives.

 
At 6:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

. . . sending you and Heidi well wishes . . . big hugs . . . so heartbreaking to think of how she has to deal with so much when she is so small . . . may the tradeoff be compassion and strength and courage and all sorts of other gifts that will make her Life so much sweeter and full of more Yes . . . more hugs . . .

 

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