Team Izzy for the SE Michigan Congenital Heart Walk

Izzy is a smiley, happy 5th grader who was born with complex congenital heart defects (CHDs) that required 3 open chest heart surgeries and 7 heart catheterizations. In early 2013, Izzy and her family had to make the heart-wrenching decision to stop surgical intervention and let Izzy live her final years as comfortably as possible.


Still. We walk.


In the past, part of the reason we walked was for the hope that the money we raised WOULD save Izzy in the future. Unfortunately, nobody is concentrating on Izzy's specific conditions. Izzy's parents have been told it is too hard. The basic research to get to the point where hope for "fixes" for Izzy is imaginable is still in its infancy.


Yet, this year and every year in the future, we will walk.


We walk to raise money for CHD research. We walk to save the lives of children and adults born with CHDs. Even though the doctors told Izzy's parents point blank five years ago (and reiterated the sentiment many times since) that research won't save Izzy, it WILL save someone else. We want to save that other parent's child. After all, it was the mothers and fathers before us who helped to fund the research that brought Izzy so far. Had Izzy been born 30 years earlier, she would never have had the opportunity to start fifth grade, to put on shows, to write stories, to give thousands of hugs.


Izzy's legacy is already multi-dimensional, but you can help us make it deeper by helping Team Izzy save the lives of others born with broken hearts. And you never know, Izzy has never followed the rules. She has lived when she wasn't supposed to time and again. Perhaps she'll prove the doctors wrong and research being funded today will save her in the future. We will never lose hope. Join Team Izzy here.