Sacramento Mended Little Hearts

Activities Update

STucker — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:00:51 +0000

Details, details, details! Whew, it has been a busy few months for Mended Little Hearts Sacramento…..at least it has been for your leadership team!

Just to recap:

We had the Back to School Ice Cream Social in August

The American Heart Association Heart Walk

where two of our Moms with Heart teams ranked in the top 20 of 77 teams helping to raise over $110,000 for pediatric cardiac research!

The Folsom Family Expo and Wellness Festival

And our first, of what we hope to be as MONTHLY Restaurant fundraisers – at 3 Rubio’s locations!

And, NEXT we have:

Our first meeting at our new meeting location at U. C. Davis

Our monthly fundraiser at Panda Express

MLH’s participation at the State Child Life Specialist conference being held at Kaiser Roseville

And then our Holiday Party!

Please check back here at the website for frequent updates and keep tabs on the events through our Facebook page!

Folsom Family Expo and Wellness Festival

STucker — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:29:44 +0000

Please join Mended Little Hearts on Saturday, October 1st, 2011 at the Sixth Annual Folsom Family Expo & Wellness Festival. We will have a booth at the Expo, so please, com on out and say Hi! This is a free event and is open to all families. If you’d like to come out and represent MLH, please email Shannon and let her know your availability!

Folsom Community Center, 50 Natoma Street, Folsom

Folsom Family Expo FB Page

Back to School Ice Cream Social – Meet your new Coordinator

STucker — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 05:04:22 +0000

Hello Mended Little Hearts Families!

I am so excited about my new role with MLH and cannot wait to meet you all and spend some time getting to know you. On Saturday, August 27th we will have an opportunity to meet for the first time at the Back to School Ice Cream Social. This is going to be a super fun event and we want as many people as possible to attend. Please invite your family and friends and their families and friends! This event will be at Lone Tree Park in Rocklin from 11:30 to 2:30. Lone Tree park has great amenities; picnic tables, playground, restrooms and a water play area! Please bring a picnic lunch, swimsuits, family, friends and your $1 bills – your $1 bill gets you unlimited ice cream, so bring your appetite, too! I’ve added a link to the park so you can get a ‘visual’ of where the event will be and also a link for the flyer, you should be able to download this and print it out and share with your family and friends.

Ice Cream Social Flyer 2011

Lone Tree Park in Rocklin

Looking forward to seeing you at the Ice Cream Social,

Shannon

A Letter from our Coordinator

Andrea — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:00:35 +0000

Hello Mended Little Hearts Families,

It has been such a joy for me to serve as coordinator for the Sacramento Chapter of Mended Little Hearts for the last year, and to be Co-leader of our previous group Hearts of Hope for two years before that. Unfortunately, our family is moving out to the bay area, and so I will no longer be able to lead this group. I am very saddened to leave you all–I have really enjoyed being a part of your lives, whether I saw you every month at our meetings, or only ocassionally, or even if we only communicated via email or facebook. We are moving to Palo Alto and so I hope to start a new MLH chapter out there at Lucille Packard eventually.

The good news is that we have some very dedicated individuals who have stepped up to serve as leaders of this group! And, I will still be able to help answer any questions or offer help via email and phone. Just because I am moving away doesn’t mean that I won’t still be involved and available to help.

Our new leadership team is:
Lead Coordinator-Shannon Tucker, cowboyart2000@msn.com
Education Coordinators-Carey McCulloch/Kirsten Fowler careymcculloch@yahoo.com and fowlerkirsten@yahoo.com
Visiting Coordinator-Angelica Fierro-Marble mommahellica@gmail.com
Treasurer/Secretary-Gina Dyke- gddyke@gmail.com
Carebags and Fundraising Coordinator-Amy Bianchini amybianchini@surewest.net

For those of you who don’t know Shannon, she is a newer member of our group, but has been very active, attending every meeting and donating supplies for our carepackages. She also has an etsy shop and makes CHD jewelery and has been donating a percentage of her CHD sales to our chapter. She is a Tetrology of Fallot survivor in her 40s and is very interested in helping other heart families.

Please welcome these new leaders! They are excited to serve our group! I am not leaving until the middle of August, so we will be training and transitioning these new leaders.

We are still looking for: Visitors, Event/Social Coordinator, Advocacy Chair, and someone to do the newsletter. Please let me know if you are interested in one of these positions!

I wish all your families health and happiness. I will miss you all!

Heart Hugs,
Andrea

Andrea, Dan, Ava and Drew Himmelberger

Bounce it Forward

Andrea — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:18:34 +0000

We had such a fun afternoon at Bounce U in Roseville! Bounce U has an awesome program called Bounce It Forward. They choose one charity a month to receive a free session for their members. This month it was Mended Little Hearts of Sacramento. We invited all of our families to come out for a free afternoon of bouncing fun! The kids had a great time with all the inflatables, inclduing slides, obstacle courses, bouncy basketball courts and boxing arenas. After they were tired out from that, we had popsicles and cookies in the party room. It was great to see all the kids interacting together and having a great time. Thank you Bounce U!!

All the bouncers!

CPR Training

Andrea — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:10:49 +0000

There are now 6 more heart moms trained in Heart Saver CPR thanks to AMR and Manny Espinoza, who graciously took time out of his busy schedule to come and train us! We had so much fun learning and practicing our skills together. And now we are certified in Adult/Child CPR and choking, Infant CPR and choking, Adult/Child CPR with mask and Infant CPR with mask. We also learned how to utilize an AED if one is available in the event of an emergency. Thank you so much to everyone who came out and especially to AMR, Gabe and Manny! You guys are the best!

Ready to Save Lives!

Drea practicing CPRAndrea practicing infant CPRAmy and Manny practicing CPR

Interventional Cardiology

Andrea — Tue, 10 May 2011 05:45:18 +0000

Tonight we had the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Van Gundy, about interventional cardiology. He has been praciticing for 22 years and is currently the only pediatric interventionalist in our area. He shared a lot of interesting information with us! He even brought videos from procedures that he’s done so we got to see sepostomies, ballooning and stent placements as he explained what he was doing. It was very cool!

Thank you Dr. Van Gundy for joining us tonight!

My Child had Heart Surgery, Now What?

Andrea — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:31:14 +0000

Dr. Ernesto Rivera, pediatric cardiologist at Kaiser spoke to our group tonight. The title of his presentation was “My Child Had Open Heart Surgery, Now What?” We had a great turnout and Dr. Rivera spoke to us about immediate, long term and defect specific issues that relate to our children. The evening was very informative and Dr. Rivera was able to answer many of our questions. Thank you Dr. Rivera for taking the time to come and speak to us!

Tips to Help your Child with Cardiac Surgery

Andrea — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:11:43 +0000

Tonight we had a great meeting with Monique Pasco, Child Life Specialist at Sutter Memorial. Monique works with heart kids before, during and after hospitalization. She was able to share some great information with our families. Here are a few of her tips:

Prior to the Procedure:
First prepare yourself
By addressing your own concerns and questions first, you will be better prepared to support your children through the process.

Find out the details and routines of the surgical process at your hospital.
Familiarize yourself with what amenities and services are available to your family.

Prepare your Children for the Surgery
Provide simple and honest explanations. Being honest with your child will help to build and maintain your trust with your child.

Schedule a pre-admission tour of the hospital
Provide an opportunity for your child to engage in medical play
Allow your child to help pack their bag for the hospital

During Admission
Continue to provide simple and honest explanations of the process.
Your presence at the bedside will be important to you and your child.
Your child will continue processing throughout his/her hospital experience.
Try and set a routine in place to help normalize the environment.
Families are encouraged to help their children document their experiences.

Post Admission
It will take time for your family to adjust back into their normal routines. Your children will continue to process their experiences of hospitalization even after they are discharged home.

There are many great resources available to help you prepare yourself and your children

Please remember that each child is different and you are the experts on your child and what is the best method to help them understand and process their experience.

If you would like more information or a copy of Monique’s notes, please contact us at SacramentoCA@mendedlittlehearts.org

Happy Heart Day!

Andrea — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:34:57 +0000

Our first ever CHD Awareness Valentine Party was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who helped plan the event, everyone who came out and supported us, those of you who brought friends and especially those who were able to donate blood! We registered 33 donors and collected 25 units of lifesaving blood! We were able to raise awareness among our community and celebrate the victories of our amazing heart children!

Our families enjoyed fun crafts for the children, delicious food and amazing cupcakes from the Sierra Health Foundation. The kids also had a great time checking out the ambulance from American Medical Response. Adults were able to give back by donating blood at the BloodSource Blood Mobile. We also had a resource table with information on heart defects, as well as a slideshow and video to educate our guests about the number one birth defect.