A little about Cole's struggle:
Cole Guimond was born on December 29, 2006. Two days after his birth, Cole was rushed to Toronto SickKids and diagnosed with critical aortic stenosis, a severe obstruction of blood flow across the aortic valve. Cole spent the first month of his life on life support undergoing many tests and treatments. At three days old Cole was rushed to the Operating Room to undergo arterial balloon dilation (catheterization). After many weeks at SickKids in Toronto, Cole was finally allowed to come home and meet his brother and sister. Cole would then travel back and forth to Toronto for follow ups every month. At 6 months old Cole was brought back for yet another balloon dilation and also again at 9 months because his aortic valve continued to narrow. Meanwhile, in several instances Cole had to battle all off common colds that would turn into pneumonia and also land him in the hospital. At one year old, Cole had to undergo open heart surgery to have his valve replaced because the many heart valve dilations caused his valve to begin leaking and had increased the pressure in his heart. The open heart surgery performed on Cole, known as the Ross-Konno procedure, involved replacing his damaged aortic valve with his own pulmonary valve. Cole suffered a long recovery, he battled the little things including a cold and the ended up with H1N1 infection that yet again damaged his heart, enlarging it, and causing all 4 valves to leek, again increasing the pressures in his heart and making the walls on the left side of his heart very thick and stiff. This prevented his heart from pushing the proper amount of blood to his body. He was diagnosed with Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and Restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM). Throughout all of this Cole has suffered through many tests, trips to Toronto and side effects such as increased sweats, lack of appetite, not being able to gain or maintain weight and also being very tired and unable to keep up with other kids . Cole is at the point now that the only possible treatment available to him is a heart transplant. For now Cole is at home with visits to Toronto every month to be monitored by his doctors at SickKids.
Thank you for your support.
