A chance to show support for Ella!!

Ella is still sick, but handling it well. Her oxygen is still a little lower with activity, but great while at rest. She isn't running fever anymore which is helpful with her heart rate staying in a safe relaxing range. She is still coughing and still has a runny nose, we are hoping it dries up soon! We are ready for good health again! Please keep praying!


Now on to a way for YOU to make a DIFFERENCE! February is Congenital Heart defect (CHD) awareness month! The 7th through the 14th is CHD awareness week. We are asking all of Ella's supporters to WEAR RED on FEB. 7TH. Share her story or share her blog, just spread awareness of CHDs! We want others to know more about this silent killer that is so unknown to the world but takes so many lives. We would love to know if you are wearing red on the 7th! Leave a comment and let us know that you will be wearing red for our heart warrior and all of the other heart warriors and heart angels!

Fact Sheets

Incidence, Morbidity & Mortality

• Congenital heart defects are America’s and every country’s #1 birth defect. Nearly one of every 100 babies is born with a CHD.
• Congenital heart defects are the #1 cause of birth defect related deaths.
• Congenital heart defects are the leading cause of all infant deaths in the United States.
• Each year approximately 40,000 babies are born in the United States with a congenital heart defect. Thousands of them will not reach their first birthday and thousands more die before they reach adulthood.
• Each year over 1,000,000 babies are born worldwide with a congenital heart defect. 100,000 of them will not live to see their first birthday and thousands more die before they reach adulthood.

Lifelong Disease

• Almost half all children and adults with complex congenital heart disease have neurological and developmental disabilities.
• There are an estimated 2,000,000 CHD survivors in the United States.
• For the first time, more than 50% of the CHD survivors are adults.
• 10% of all CHD cases evaluated in an Adult CHD clinic are first diagnosed in adulthood.

Economic Factors

• 91,000 life years are lost each year in this country due to congenital heart defects.
• The cost for inpatient surgery to repair congenital heart defects exceeds $2.2 billion a year.

General CHD FACTS

• More than 50% of all children born with congenital heart defect will require at least one invasive surgery in their lifetime.
• There are more than 40 different types of congenital heart defects. Little is known about the cause of most of them. There is no known prevention or cure for any of them.
• In the United States, twice as many children die from congenital heart defects each year than from all forms of childhood cancer combined.

Research Allocations & Impact

• Congenital heart defects are common and deadly, yet CHD research is grossly under-funded relative to the prevalence of the disease.
• Of every dollar the government spends on medical funding only a fraction of a penny is directed toward congenital heart defect research.
• The NHLBI has stated that Congenital Heart Defects are a serious and underappreciated global health problem.
• In the last decade death rates for congenital heart defects have declined by almost 30% due to advances made through research.

Source of facts: http://www.childrensheartfoundation.org/about-chf/fact-sheets




With awareness comes funding, with funding comes research, with research comes hope!