Story~
Gracie's
mom
This is our little girl Grace; she is now 4 ½ . She is truly one of the
happiest, most fun loving, sweetest, energetic, spunky little girls
you will ever meet! You wouldn’t know from her picture but
Grace was born with a rare and severe Congenital Heart Defect
(CHD), Hypo-plastic Left Heart Syndrome. This essentially
means she was born missing half of her heart. She only has a
two- chamber heart instead of the normal 4-chamber heart.
During pregnancy her left ventricle did not grow properly, the
left ventricle is the main pumping chamber of your heart.
Grace had her 1st open-heart surgery at just 6 days old, her 2nd at 5 ½ months old and her third at three years old. This last surgery completed the 3 staged-palliative repair this heart defect requires and hopefully this will be Grace’s final open-heart surgery. We are so thankful that Grace is now past the 3rd surgery. She is a beautiful girl who loves going to pre-school, coloring, painting, playing with her baby dolls and helping Mom “clean”. One of her favorite past-times is watching the Disney or Sprout channel. She is a wonderful little girl and we hope our biggest dream for her will come true and she will have a long and happy life.
Children’s Hospital Boston is where we first found real hope for our daughter. All three of her surgeries have been performed there and we know there is no other place we would want her to be cared for. Grace has spent over 10 weeks at the hospital, had numerous doctor appointments and she will continue to have a lifetime of care there. Because of the amazing care and support we received at Children’s Hospital we were inspired to somehow give back to the hospital that saved Grace’s life. Therefore, the Campbell Family, with the help of family and friends, started The Grace Alice Campbell Foundation. The foundation has two goals: to raise funds to help doctors through research to better understand the causes of CHD, and (hopefully one day) to find a cure for all Congenital Heart Defects; also to help the children and their families who have been affected by a CHD. We do this by each year donating to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital Boston and also making direct donations to families affected by a Congenital Heart Defect. To learn more about The Grace Alice Campbell Foundation, visit their website at tgacfoundation.org.
Home
age 4
HLHS
