Backstory... My sister is 14 years younger than me, for that reason our relationship is so that she's almost like my child. She was born with two holes in her heart and had her first heart surgery at 6 months. After more than a month in the hospital she came home to resume her normal activities as a bouncing baby girl. Fast forward to early last year. Mindy, now 16, was playing softball for her high school team when she started to feel dizzy and when I checked her pulse her heart rate was really high. After some tests run at Children's they discovered a heart arrhythmia. The next morning they shocked her heart back into rhythm and it behaved for almost a full year. In June of this year, she was playing basketball at a friend's graduation party and her heart rate accelerated again. This time by the time we got her to the ER at Children's her heart rate was over 200.. very very scary. Again she was admitted to the CICU and they ran tests. Again they shocked her heart into rhythm ... and plans were made to decide how to keep this from happening again. To keep this as short as possible, Mindy will have surgery on Sept 1st and I wanted to help support the people that will be helping her while she recovers from a 7 hour surgery that will repair both a faulty valve in her heart and the electrical issues that continue to cause the arrhythmia. Hence, this shameless plug for donations. http://giving.cincinnatichildrens.org/netcommunity/mandy Don't feel obligated, but if anyone here has an extra few bucks that they would like to donate to support the cause, I greatly appreciate it (as will the non-profit teaching hospital that is Children's). If you don't donate to our Children's Hospital I recommend finding a way to support the Children's hospital where ever you live. There is nothing worse than having to console a very sick child. I wouldn't normally post something like this here, but I felt like it was a worthy enough cause to at least ask Thanks for reading! (mods if this is beyond the pale, accept my apologies and boot it)
