A Childs Smile

This article was to good not to share. I hope you read this, its amazing.

http://www.news4jax.com/positively-jax/heart-defect-survivors-bring-toys-to-patients

WINNERS REVISED

So after I posted about the winners I was contacted by Sarah and she said that she didnt feel comfortable being in the contest when she was donating the 2nd place prize. So to respect her wishes The new winner of the sterling silver necklace is...

Maria Nelson.

Congratulations Maria, please send me your mailing information so I can get this out to you. :)

Winners

            Thank you again for helping spread awareness for CHD It really went by fast this year. I would like to encourage you to continue to help spread awareness. One this I realized I didn't talk about was a pulse ox test. There are a lot of hospitals now who have this as one of their required test on newborns, but just in case it never hurts to ask. A pulse ox test is a little light that is put on the babies hand or foot and it measures the heart beat and blood flow and can help detect a heart defect. I know a few heart mommy's that have been working hard to get the pulse ox test to be a standard test in hospitals around the nation. This is just a simple way to spread awareness and help detect a possible CHD.
            For now though it is contest time. :) As always I assign random numbers to all participants and then go to random.org  and do a draw from 1 to 100 the 3 numbers I get are my winners. :) So here we are....

3rd place and winner of the $10 Everythings Ducky Boutique Gift card is...
DAWN FELLOWS

2nd place and winner of the Jamberry nail wraps is...
Diane Kowalik

and the winner of the sterling silver necklace is....
SARAH GARDINER 

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE!!! Please send me your information so that I can get your your prizes.

Happy Heart Day

Well today ends our heart day. I cant believe it went by so fast. But CHD Awareness doesn't have to be limited to these two weeks alone. Questions are always welcome year round. :) I really hope you have enjoyed reading these posts and learning about CHD. I feel like I didn't even cover a little of what the world of CHD is. So please ask questions if you have them.  Happy Heart Day!

Jack

 Being a organ donor may mean saving the life of a person. I know that this is a touchy subject for people. Even more so when you are talking about kids; I cant even imagine losing my little girl and having to go through that. However if that is something that would happen I hope I would be brave enough, like Jack's family to offer the gift of life to another little one through organ donation. I have been able to seen first hand how it blesses lives, not only that of the recipient but of the family of the giver.

My heart goes out to all the Heart Angels parents and families as well as my friends who have had to say goodbye to a child.

The boy in the picture above is Jack, the one who gave Abby the chance at life. Words cannot express my gratitude to his family for making the choice of donating their sons organs to save lives. Abby's life is not the only one he saved. We are forever grateful for this beautiful gift. I know it's hard to think of but please be an organ donor and when the time comes encourage your kids to do so. Death is a hard topic. But giving life to another is the best gift that could ever be given.

Please help spread awareness.

Our Heart Hero's Transplant

This is always hard to write my feeling about Abby's CHD experiences and I'm just her aunt. I have such a respect to her mother for her strength, courage and more. Abby is so amazing and I am so happy that I get to be in her life. It seemed like it took awhile for Abby to be considered to get on the transplant list. I don't know if this is because everyday felt like a week or if it really was a long time. It seemed like she was making daily trips to the hospital to do some kind of test or talk to some kind of doctor or board of doctors. But she was finally put on the transplant list. Our family talked about settling in and bracing ourselves for what we thought was going to be a very long wait. We talked about what it would mean for Abby to get a transplant not just for her but for someone else. Abby was on the list for I think it was about 4 days, if that. I can remember when my mother in law called us and said that Abby was on her way to the hospital. We couldn't believe that a heart was ready for her so fast. I went to work that day but was always either texting or calling to find out what was going on. I will admit selfishly that I was only thinking about Abby. I wasn't thinking about the poor family who was losing their loved one. I think it was because I was so focused on Abby and what I could do to help that it didn't even occur to me what the other family was going through somewhere in another room maybe even in the same hospital. I didn't think about it then, but I Definitely think about it now. A LOT
A family from Colorado was going through the loss of losing their son Jack. They donated his organs in the hope that they could help another. Jack's heart saved Abby. Abby went through all that a transplant patient goes through, endless medicine, weekly checkups to make sure there was no rejection. The scare when there was a sign of rejection. But through it all Abby had her guardian angel Jack to help her through it. I say had, but in reality I think he's still with her today. This spring we will celebrate Abby's 4th year after her transplant. She is in contact with Jack's family and was even able to go to Denver Colorado and participate in a donor run in honor of Jack. She got to meet Jacks family personally and they had the opportunity to listen to the beat of Jacks strong heart in our small heart hero. Abby's mom gives an amazing account of their journey to Colorado. I hope you will read it here.
There is so much more that I feel about this experience, but I have yet to have the chance to really be able to put them into words. I am so thankful for the chance to Have to send funny faced snap chats to this beautiful girl; :) or talk about books or the newest crazy movie that's out; I love watching her perform in her various plays that she does. Mostly I am just so happy that I can be in this sweethearts life and that she is in ours.

Memoriam