women W e A D M I R E
Karen Thurston Chavez A Mother’s Love Helps Heal the Heart By Angela Howard
“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
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his quote by author Elizabeth Stone is one that most every mother can agree with. We carry our child for nine short months and then have a front-row seat to the miracle of birth as our angel enters into the world. But what would you do if you found out your little one wasn’t perfect? That was the reality for Karen Thurston Chavez when her youngest son, William, was diagnosed with the heart-lung disease Scimitar Syndrome at just 11 months old. “We were shocked and upset to learn he had a congenital heart defect. I cried for days,” Karen said. Karen and her husband Joaquin (and their older son Martin) learned that William’s pulmonary veins had an abnormal connection to the right side of his heart and
his right lung was small and underdeveloped, but instead of letting the diagnosis and sadness take over, the Tallahassee family set out to find the best treatment possible. “We were scared and we were worried for what William’s future held, but at the same time, we were incredibly relieved to finally have an answer to why William was always, always sick,” Karen said. Within a week of William’s diagnosis, the Chavezes had appointments with a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Florida and Shands Hospital for Children in Gainesville. “We stayed in Gainesville for two days while William had EKGs to check the electrical currents in his heart, echocardiograms to look at and measure his heart, and X-rays to see his chest and vasculature. It was the first time in over a year that we felt like William would be OK,” she said. When William was two years old, he had his first openheart surgery. Soon after, he was able to play and run without getting tired. Knowing how hard it was to go through such an ordeal pushed Karen and her friend Kim Rooks to start Broken Hearts of Florida (BHF), a support group to help other families affected by congenital heart disease. “I think I’ve always been a glass-half-full kind of person, and I try to find the positive in most situations,” Karen said. “Reaching out to other families who are going through similar experiences helps a lot.” Beginning as a local support group with about 60 families, Broken Hearts has since grown into a recognized non-profit, with three chapters and about 275 families. One hundred percent of the profits go back into the organization to serve the families of BHF who, in turn, help the women who started it all. “My least stressful days over the past few months have been when I was busy helping another family in Broken Hearts.”
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• F e b r u a r y /M a rc h 2013