September 2006

This past Saturday (Sept 16th) was the annual HeartWalk to benefit the American Heart Association. We have been participating in this event since its inception in 1991. Alex has turned into one of the events biggest fundraisers here in Indianapolis. I imagine over the years, she has raised more than $80,000 for this event alone! This year there were thousands of people in downtown Indianapolis raising much needed funds for research and education about Heart Disease and Stroke. Locally, the event was anticipated to raise close to $1,000,000. Alex's goal was to raise $15,000 and she may very well reach $17,000 which would again probably make her the number 1 fund raiser in Indianapolis for this event! Below are a couple pictures from the event. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the Walk was nice!










Alex preparing to cut the red ribbon to start the Walk. Each year she has special TEAM ALEX t-shirts made. On the back of the Shirt the various Corporate ($1000 or more donation) and individual donors ($500 or more donation) are listed.












Alex and her Aunt Debbie before the Walk began.












Alex being interviewed LIVE at the event on the NBC Affiliate in Indy!

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DID YOU KNOW:

Each day an average heart “beats” (expands and contracts) 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood.

About 1% of kids are born with Congenital Heart Defects? Of those 1%, Alex is in a more rare category due to her having a single Ventricle (she was also born with Pulmonary Stenosis and Transposition of the Great Vessels).

Alex has a 2-chamber heart (normally it's 4 chambers) and a pacemaker. She takes about 4-5 different medicines, some of them 3 times a day. She has a special machine which is used to call into the hospital over the phone so they can monitor the pacemaker. The old/unoxygenated blood in her body never really goes into her heart...it gets sent directly to the lungs! The sole purpose of her heart is to pump the good/oxygentaed blood to the body through the Aorta.
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Thanks for reading and thanks for all of your support! ! ! ! !