A big heart - those words are usually a compliment, unless they come from your cardiologist.
"After being in the ER for about 10 hours, they told me I needed to have emergency open-heart surgery because my aorta, which is the vessel that takes blood from your heart to the rest of your body, had enlarged and torn inside," Victoria Lewell said. "If they don't fix it, it's a fatal condition, so it needed to be fixed super quickly."
Her only option for seeing her two young daughters grow up -- emergency open-heart surgery.
"I was very scared," Lewell explained. "I didn't want them to lose their mother. That was the last thought I had when they were moving me into surgery was -- I need to be there for them."
Now she's using her second chance and her hands to raise awareness for the American Heart Association's Little Hats, Big Hearts program.
"Instead of getting a traditional striped blue or pink hat, the babies were given these adorable red hats that they wore in the nurseries, and it was a great way to promote awareness of congenital birth defects since many babies are born with it," she said.
This year is the second year AHA is doing the program. Knitters and crocheters create thousands of tiny red hats to donate to Kansas City hospitals for all babies born during February, which is American Heart Month.
Last year, knitters and crocheters made around 2,000 hats for KC hospitals. The American Heart Association hopes to donate more than that this year.
You can donate red, hand-crocheted or knitted infant hats to the American Heart Association through January. Click here for more info on how to get involved. The website also has sample hat patterns and more information.
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Terra Hall can be reached at terra.hall@kshb.com.
