The Johnston Family

Gabriel is almost 3 years old and has had a pretty rough life (in my eyes) to him it might not seem that rough, but if I were in his position I would think of it as rough! For starters he was born with Eczema and has had it since then, everyday for the last 3 years I have had to keep lotions and medicines on him 2-4 times a day. When he was 18 months old we found out that he had a heart defect called ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) what is that you might ask? Well for one I have enclosed a picture to show you. Two you have four chambers in the heart in which there is a wall called the "septum" between the chambers, well in Gabe's case the upper two chambers (atria) did not have a wall and thus causing the blood that entered the left side of the heart automatically shunted over to the right side, causing his lungs to get double the amount of oxiginated blood. He had really no symptoms except poor growth, this kind of defect usually causes shortness of breath in which he did not have. So his cardiologist gave him till he was 2 to see if maybe just maybe he might grow his own septum, but he did not. So on February 10th 2009 he had open heart surgery. This was the scariest day of my life, I prayed and prayed and prayed some more that he survives his surgery and he did. He bounced back so fast, the usual stay for heart surgery patients is about 5-7 days and we were out of there in 3, we got to come home on Valentines Day :) what I think is so great about this is that he won't remember any of it. Only what I tell him and the pictures I show him. Also while we were there since it was so close to V-Day I made the V-Day gift bags for all the Children at the Childrens Hospital. Some of the parents were so grateful that they even gave little gifts back in which I have stored away for Gabe when he's older. Here are a few pictures.