Meet my son Lucas

Hi everyone! I would like you to meet my son Lucas. He just turned 3 years old last November 7. Most of my clients know about him and I constantly talk about him - and I hope you don't mind too. Let me tell you why.

My son was born with a rare congenital heart defect called Truncus Arteriousus Type II - he did not develop a pulmonary artery. At four months old, he underwent an emergency open heart surgery to create a bypass to help his heart function better. We discovered that his aorta had a clog too, so the doctors at the Philippine Heart Center had to address that at the same time. At four months old, he was still wearing newborn clothes. His heart rate was 2 or more beats per second. His heart would pound against me whenever I carried him in my arms. He was going into pulmonary arrest, so we had to go into surgery. It was the worst time of our lives. I held him as he was sedated and handed him over to his attending doctors. For moms out there reading this, I do not ever wish for you to feel what I felt that moment. I did not want to leave him. I wanted to be there for him every step of the surgery - but I couldn't. My husband and I waited and waited. It was the longest 10 hours of our lives. At the waiting area, the nurses at the recovery room would randomly call out the relatives of some of the patients. My husband and I later learned, that being called isn't one thing we would want. It meant something was going wrong at the recovery room. Lucas was having cardiac arrests without us knowing it, and after his 7th arrest, we were asked to say goodbye. I never said goodbye, I told him, "You've gone this far, we are done and we are getting out of here." It was the most difficult words I ever had to say. But I believed it. We prayed non-stop, praying that no other arrests occur. For 6 hours straight, Lucas was responding better to antibiotics. We continued to pray - and eventually the arrests were over.

Lucas' 2nd surgery was just last August. It was as life-changing to Gene and I as parents as it was to Lucas. The second surgery was a breeze and we couldn't be any more proud of our son. I am happy to say that our son no longer suffers from any of the discomfort he was experiencing before. His nailbeds, lips, gums and tongue are no longer purple and are the color they should be.

There's a whole lot more to our story, but I just want everyone to get to know my little bundle of energy. Thank you for your prayers, thank you for loving my son as much as we do. <3 God is good all the time.