Knox's Christmas Book Drive

As many of you know we spent the days leading up to Christmas in Nationwide Children's Hospital for Knox's second open heart surgery. We checked in for surgery on December 19th and thanks to our amazing surgeon Dr. Galantowicz we were released on Christmas day.

With it being Knox's first Christmas, I was bummed that we were spending it inside the hospital walls, but the success of his surgery and his recovery was a beautiful Christmas gift. No matter what your child's illness is being in the hospital around the holidays is hard. Nationwide did a wonderful job providing gifts, decorations, and Christmas cheer to those in the hospital. Santa even snuck in while we were sleeping and left Knox a gift.

Not knowing how long we were going to be in the hospital I brought a Christmas tree, our stockings, Christmas jambes, and a few gifts for Knox in case we were in over the holiday. My dad went across the street to the CVS and bought us all hats so that we could start a Christmas tradition. It was a very humbling and intimidate time to be together, and be thankful for our Christmas blessings.

With the holiday season right around the corner, I can't help but think about our time in the hospital, and the families who will be there this year. To honor Knox's successful heart surgery and to do something for Nationwide Children's Hospital, our family would like to invite you to be apart of our Christmas Book Drive. If you would like to participate we ask that you donate a Christmas book or your favorite story to our drive. Families can gather together in the comfort of their hospital room and read a story together to celebrate Christmas and togetherness.

If you are out of town and worried about shipping your book to us, we have made an Amazon Wishlist (click here) with lots of Christmas stories on it. You can shop and the book will be mailed straight to us. You can always go to your local bookstore and purchase your favorite story and get it to us. All the books will receive a stamp in the inside stating that it was donated in honor of Knox, Congenital Heart Defect Warrior, and donated to the CTICU and the step down unit of the Heart Center at Nationwide.

We appreciate your interest in providing a little Christmas cheer to children with heart problems like Knox while they are in the hospital. We still can't thank Nationwide Children's Hospital enough for all the did for our little guy and our family, and we will continue to support them however we can!

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

Heart Month and our Heart Hero

As many of you know February is Heart Month. While many think of only raising awareness for heart disease in women and adults, research for congenital heart defects (CHDs) is underfunded and doesn't get the attention it needs. 1 in 100 babies are born with a CHD and it kills more children than any type of children's cancer. 

Of course being new to the CHD family, I am not near as good as raising awareness as some of the other awesome moms I have met through support groups. I do what I can though. So when Nationwide Children's hospital contacted us about sharing our story during heart month we were eager to say yes. 

Though many of you have seen our interview with NBC 4 Columbus, I wanted to share the story. We met with Gina from marketing and Ellie Merritt the reporter and news anchor who would be sharing Knox's story in the Magic Forest at Nationwide. We were missing one very important guest at the party though - Dr. G! He was one of the reasons we were excited to do the interview because he would be there as well. We haven't seen him since we left Columbus, and of course, he holds a special place in our heart. 

We went up to the cardiology clinic - a place we were very familiar with and set up in a conference room. We began our interview and waited for Dr. G's arrival.  Of course when he arrived everyone stopped what we were doing. He seemed nervous because he doesn't like the spotlight, and apologized because he had been up all night in surgery. He was excited to see us and excited to see Knox. It was nice to see him and not be nervous and talking about surgery. He is such a wonderful individual and an amazing surgeron.  He have me some advice - but that's another blog. 

Ellie, the reporter was wonderful to work with- Very professional and extremely caring. She seemed interested in our journey and loved Knox. Who doesn't though? We were excited to see what they put together to share Knox's story. I am glad it is something we can show him as he gets older. Thank you to Gina, Nationwide, Ellie Merritt, NBC 4, and Dr. Galantowicz for benign apart of our heart awareness story. 

I have spoke a few times about being a part of support groups on Facebook. You can learn a lot from them and it's a great way to not feel alone. One of the groups I am a member of is exclusively for mothers whose children have had heart issues at Nationwide Children's Hospital. 

One of their projects during Heart Month is to make a video to thank the staff of Nationwide. Here is the wonderful video they made, and you might even see someone you know! Thank you JoAnne for making this video and allowing me to find comfort in this group. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Kf_AXNcUyU

Lastly, the important thing for us to remember is that we should raise awareness for CHDs everyday not just in February. I have seen way too many children affected by these issues this year.