SEATTLE HEART WALK - October 20th

My life was turned upside the day we found out about Mason's special heart. It is something that has given us an accidental purpose in life... To trust God when we don't understand and to be apart of helping this community raise money, raise awareness, create hope and inspire change.

Did you know that cardiovascular disease is the number 1 killer of ALL Americans?
In fact someone dies from CVD every 38 seconds!
Heart disease also kills more women than all forms of cancer combined and congenital cardiovascular defects are the most common cause of infant death from birth defects.

This year the Seattle Heart Walk is scheduled for October 20, 212. Save the date and join our team in fighting back!

Here is the link to our team's webpage:
http://pugetsoundheartwalk.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=1001672&lis=0&kntae1001672=34257BDFE1E54C9F89AF0348593795DA&supId=0&team=5010962&cj=Y

The funds we raise in the Heart Walk will support projects like these:
- Putting up-to-the-minute research into doctors’ hands so they can better prevent and treat heart disease among patients.
- Groundbreaking pediatric heart and stroke research. About 36,000 babies are born with heart defects each year —research is the key to saving babies’ lives
- Getting life-saving information to those who need it most – information that can save a life, like how to eat better, how to recognize the warning signs of heart attack, and how to talk to a doctor

I hope you will join us this year in raising awareness by walking with us and giving what you can; every dollar makes a difference!

Kelsey Garka

Comments

Making Progress

Greetings from Seattle Children's, We are happy to inform everyone that Mason is doing very well and has been moved out of ICU and over to, "the floor." This is a good sign that he is recovering on schedule and should be just a few days away from going home. He orginally had three or four I.V.'s in and is now down to one, which included the removal of the main one in his neck. Kelsey and I were looking forward to that one being removed. He still has two drainage tubes in his chest which we would like to have had out already but the Dr.'s are being cautious because he drained a little more blood than normal his first day after surgery. The plan is to have those taken out tomorrow which will make him feel even better. He is waking up on occasion but isn't quite up for smiling yet...understandably. Kelsey and I just want to hold him and make him feel better but unfortunately he seems to become more uncomfortable when we do, so we try not to be too selfi...

Welcome to HOLLAND

It was time to start collecting all of the information needed to schedule and prepare for Mason’s Fontan Surgery. So last Friday – Mason went in for his Cardiac Catheterization. (Defined below) Cardiac Catheterization (Heart Cath) is the insertation of a catheter into a chamber or Vessel of the heart. This is done for both investigational and intervention purposes. Subsets of this technique are mainly coronary catheterization, involving the catheterization of coronary arteries, and catheterization of cardiac cambers and valves. (Did you get all of that?!?!?) When we arrived at Seattle Children’s Hospital– Greg was busy checking us in and I sat with Mason in the Surgery Center waiting area. Mason and I talked, I kissed him, I played with him… I pulled out all the stops so that he would not remember that he hadn’t eaten in 12 hours and that he was at his least favorite place – Children’s Hospital. During some point of my “operation distract Mason” I noticed you staring at us from acr...

10 Years....

Mason, It is amazing how time passes by in the blink of an eye after you have kids…. It seems like just yesterday, yet this week, 10 years have passed since our life was turned upside down. The day our world took a turn we never saw coming. Each year leading up to the anniversary, I get anxious, emotional, sad, scared, and angry. I WISH 10 years later I felt differently. But I don’t. It almost feels just as raw as the day we were told…. This year. I am consciously recognizing what it is… MONDAY FEBRUARY 11 th ,2008. We sat in a room where a Doctor carefully articulated and explained to us about your special heart. There is one detail about this day I have seemed to forget in time. That is the name of the doctor who told us about our fate…. I could describe to you in details about anything else you might want to know, who was there, what we were wearing, what the Doctor himself looked like and the conversation we had. Yet his name, which used to be...

Mason Gregory Garka

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