Thank you for visiting my fundraising page! I am participating in the Congenital Heart Walk to support the mission of The Children's Heart Foundation: to advance the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of congenital heart defects by funding the most promising research.

As you all know Luca was born with a congenital heart defect. CHD is a structural deformity present at birth. Luca’s CHD is Aortic stenosis due to bicuspid aortic valve with aortic valve regurgitation. Aortic stenosis is when the aortic valve was formed to narrow and causes the heart to work hard to pump blood. There are four levels: mild, moderate, severe and critical. Luca was born at a mild level but quickly developed into moderate. At 3 months old Luca underwent his first procedure, an aortic valve valvuloplasty which took his number from being moderate down to mild, where it remains today. An aortic valvuloplasty is a procedure that widens the aortic valve when a balloon catheter is inserted into the valve. After the procedure Luca did develop a clot of the right external iliac and common femoral artery. Luckily after a week of home injections of Lovenox the clot cleared. We have been lucky enough to not have any more cardiac procedures since then. 

Unfortunately, a CHD is not something that can be cured, just continually repaired. At some point in Luca’s life, he will need his aortic valve replaced. We are hopeful and pray that he won’t need that until he is an adult when his body has fully grown.

Each year there are almost 40,000 infants born with a CHD in the United States and almost 1 million across the world. It is the most common birth defect and the leading cause of birth defect-associated infant illness and death. Right now 85% of babies born with a CHD will live into adulthood and the donations from this walk help in making that possible.