The Boo

Boo is a Make A Wish Kid with the heart of a lion. Her pint sized six year old body is crisscrossed like a crazy quilt with scars. Tangled blond hair and bright blue eyes; she is precious and precocious, and the love of my life. She has faced every surgical assault with dignity and bravery and without complaint. Her only real desire in life is to be able to keep up with the rest of the first graders in her class. She knows the doctors have been helping her to do just that.

Boo is my only grandchild. I've been there from the first frightening prenatal sonogram, to her risky birth. I've stood beside her hospital bed praying life back into her while she recovered from each surgery. I've held her face in my hands as she pleaded for them to stop hurting her when they pulled her chest tubes. I've held her mother when she finally broke after being told that the last open heart surgery was failing and another would be needed. It's been such a long journey for all of us. I cannot even begin to imagine the future. I'm just thankful there will be one.

In my daughter, Wendy's, fifth month of pregnancy, a routine sonogram revealed numerous, severe, congenital heart defects in the baby. Prenatal care was immediately switched to the Cleveland Clinic and a search for a pediatric cardiac surgeon was begun. Every opinion seemed to point toward abortion as the better option for both mother and child. Wendy and her husband were given one week to make a life changing decision. It had taken them eight years to conceive and a second pregnancy was not likely.

Over the next seven days they searched for a miracle; a single surgeon who might give them hope and take on their case. Their prayers were answered with the appearance of Dr Mee. A man so gifted in pediatric cardiac surgery that a book had been written about him entitled "Walks On Water." He gave them tough answers to their questions. He drew them a picture of the difficult struggle of love and survival that their lives would become. He believed that a series of surgical repairs would, at the very least, buy the time needed to extend her life until either a transplant or medical advances provided a more normal life expectancy. He made no promises, gave no guarantees, but he gave them enough hope to decide in favor of continuing the pregnancy.

Now, six surgeries later, we begin a new future with Boo. She has been made whole, so to speak, and her life expectancy is that of a normal child. She finishes the first grade soon, and is, as promised, able to keep up with the other first graders. Make a Wish gave her Disney Land. The Doctors gave her life. Her future is limitless.