Thursday, January 26, 2012

Jump Rope for Heart!

My seven year old daughter, Avery,  is participating in the Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser at school for the American Heart Society.  My own son, Austin, has a 'special heart'. He was born with a congenital heart defect called Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA). He had to be born at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital, which is one hour away from where we live, so that the doctors there could perform a 'switch procedure', the 6 hour open heart surgery that saved his life. Without them, he wouldn't be here today. Austin is now an 18 month old, rambunctious little boy who is doing well. His heart is far from perfect, though, and he may need to have a stent put in in the future. But for now, we enjoy every moment with him and thank God for organizations like the AHS. Please consider donating. Here is the link to the page for online donations: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6121927698133456957#editor/target=post;postID=8130284533632717512

Also, if you are interested in Austin's story, I made a book on Shutterfly recording his progress at the hospital. They don't exactly make baby books for little ones who spend their first five weeks of life in the hospital, so I felt I needed to make Austin his own book so he and his brother and sister could someday see all that he has to be thankful for. We didn't take our daughter, then 6, and our oldest son, Collin, then 3, to see Austin in the hospital, so the book also helped them to understand what happened. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to view the book. Thanks for looking and please consider donating to the AHA!

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