I was born in 1971 with Pulmonary Atresia, a small ASD, and a small right ventricle. I had my first open heart surgery the day after I was born. During that surgery they made a hole between the right ventricle and the pulmonary arteries. My second surgery was just before I turned 4. They enlarged the original hole and put a stitch in my ASD to close that up.

When I was born in April of 1988, the doctor's at Boston Children's Hospital discovered that I was born with Pulmonary Atresia. A procedure had to be done immediately to fix the hole in my heart the day after my birth. After a successful first operation performed by Dr. Lock, I was able to go home to begin my new life. At 18 months, we were told that I was in need of another operation to permanently fix that hole.

I was born in the city of Uberlandia, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil on March 26, 1980. I was born with 5 congenital heart defects: my right ventricle is atrophic, I do not have the tricuspid valve, I have pulmonary stenosis, inter-atrial septal defect, inter-ventricular septal defect, and the mitral valve was over working. In other words, my right ventricle did not work properly at all. The doctors considered me a blue baby.

My first 5 months of life was very hard. I had all kind of sickness possible, colds, flu, and almost every day my pulmonary valve would close and I was in crisis with short of breath. My mom would try every possible way to help me but all in vain. My mom, at that time did not know the extension of my health problems.