(Guest blog post for Adult Congenital Heart Association by Cassandra Reinbold) Two weeks after I was born, the doctor came rushing in with more doctors behind him during my check-up to discover I had a special heart. Appointment after appointments, they discovered I was born with an unrepairable ventricular septal defect. My first surgery was […] Read more
(Guest blog post for Conquering CHD by Laura Hoagland) To say I enjoy summer is an understatement. I LOVE summer! Growing up in the Pacific Northwest summer was filled with family vacations to the coast, afternoons on the lake and attending a local summer camp with school friends. As I got older, and especially throughout […] Read more
(Originally published in the Star Tribune August 19, 2003 – By Robert Franklin) “Ten-year-old Donovan Bays says a big attraction at camp this summer was “being able to swim without my shirt.” That’s because he wasn’t self-conscious about his heart surgery scars. Nearly all the kids at Camp Odayin — and several of the counselors […] Read more
