Kylie's Kids: Meet Gavin
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- When we hear the word "zipper," most of us think about what you use to zip up your jackets. For people who have had open heart surgery, the word has a very different meaning.
But for Gavin, his zipper scar gives him super powers. It's also the name of his team that gets together every year to support him.
Gavin seems to have missed the memo on the "terrible twos." At 2 and a half, Gavin is always smiling and playing.
"He's your true typical boy," his mother Amanda Jamison said. "He loves to run around, be crazy."
And he isn't shy to show off what makes him so special -- a straight line scar down his chest, his "zipper" shows where he's had open heart surgery.
"When I touch it, you can feel the bumps from the rib cage where they pulled the rib cage back together," Amanda said. "It kind of gives him a super hero aspect to him."
Gavin's start to life wasn't an easy one, especially for his mother. Just an hour after Gavin was born, doctors noticed something wasn't right. They discovered he had a heart defect.
"They came back in the room and said, 'I think you need to sit down for this,'" Amanda said. "The heart didn't grow the right way. The left shifted over to the right a little more than it was supposed to. ... I had a really hard first three months, we thought we were going to lose him."
Gavin also had several holes in his heart and blockages that required surgery at 6 months old.
"You would never in a million years assume he had the surgery," Amanda said.
But while they were in the hospital, not everyone's baby was getting better.
"Seeing the children around us that were still struggling was really hard," Amanda said. "You're not only praying for your little guy, but you're praying for everyone else."
Now every year Gavin calls on his team to raise money for other heart families at Children's Minnesota's Heartbeat 5000. It's a morning to make sure that other families get a happy ending like Gavin's.
"You have thousands of people who are coming out for this walk," Amanda said. "It's not just the immediate family, it's extended family and friends. We're going to have a whole group there with our 'Gavin's Zipper' shirts on."
To register for the event, click here.
Heartbeat 5000
Saturday, June 25
5K/Walk 9:30 a.m.
Father Hennepin Bluffs Park, Minneapolis
