Anyone who knows me well knows I’ve had heart surgery four times. It’s not something I tend to announce or write on those note cards with "Four Facts About Me" at the beginning of class; it usually comes out after a while if you talk to me enough. However, because I have the perspective of a survivor of Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome, it's something I feel I should address more often. Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome is a defect where the right atrium and ventricle of the heart have not fully developed. This causes inadequate flow of blood to areas like the lungs. If you’re wondering, even after all my surgeries, my blood flow isn’t the best in my toes and feet. It’s not very common, less common than Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome from what I’ve read.

Growing up with it, as a child who loved running around, it sometimes got tough with the fact I had to stop when I wouldn’t want to. My hands and lips would be blue because of the lack of blood flow my heart failed to give me. I’d play football in the yard by myself, "winning the Super Bowl" every single day in my front yard, yearning to play on a team. If you’ve never had a dream dashed before: I don’t envy you. If you’re dream was dashed at an early age: you are very indescribably lucky. That’s how I now view the news of when my mother told me I wasn’t allowed to play football because of my heart. It’s good, I think, to learn early that if one dream is taken away from you, to do something very important: dream again. I’ve wanted to be an astronaut, which I can't, to scuba dive deep depths, which I can't, to win a GQ Man of the Year Award in some category: I totally can. When people tell you that you can’t do something, you can either prove them wrong or make a new dream for yourself, one you can do. We dare to dream again.

Early in my life I would show classmates immediately my heart scars and tell them I got run over by a motorcycle with my imaginary friend, Guy. My classmates weren’t necessarily okay with it. I got treated a bit differently. In fourth grade we were doing “Fourth Grade Swim” and the instructors had asked me to keep a shirt on or I couldn’t participate because I was a “distraction." That moment was a huge swing in my life where I became ashamed of my heart condition for a few years. I didn’t show my scars to anyone, I didn’t want to talk about the thing that used to make me special and some nights I grew sad and upset with my malfunctioned heart because my scars are unsightly. Of course, my mother wasn’t having any of that and encouraged me to be okay with my scars. She told me that I deserved to be open about it because I survived those four surgeries. At a camp in sixth grade I had to take off my shirt to shower with the other kids at camp. I was wary but decided to take a breath and go for it anyway. What happened? My peers freaked out...about how “awesome” it looked. One told me, “It looks like a wand. It’s pretty f*** awesome man.” Soon news got around to everyone at camp about my wand-shaped scar and people all over camp were asking to see it.

I’ve been bullied before. I’ve been thrown in a trashcan, jumped, people even tried to embarrass me about my heart to other students in middle school. But here’s how I see it now, something I learned while going through it all: baby, that’s just me. I have every right to be proud of what I survived and not a single person can take that away from me.

When I have checkups for my heart and grow aware of my scar again, I think to myself, “That heart looks beautiful." My scar is a part of my past and all scars have a story. I’ll be honest, there’s a sad, reflective moment one day of the year when I think about all the kids like who have HHS who didn’t make it…and for a while I felt guilt when it hit me. It’s on my birthday as I dress, as I look in the mirror at the scar I used to hate, the life I showed disdain for at times in an earlier part, and I think of everything I’ve been given and have and will do. I think of the ones who also get that chance and pray they’re living life to the fullest in all facets. For the ones who didn’t make it, a part of me feels like I also have to live for them, for their memory. It’s part of why I ask myself at the end of any given day: what have I accomplished today? If it’s nothing: I do something. Why? Because there's air in my lungs.

This year, I’ll turn twenty years old. I’m in college with a variety of dreams for my future, but as long as I get to help people in some capacity or another, I’ll feel happy with what I’ve done. I've helped coach a football team as a junior in high school. I was an ASB leader my senior year of high school at High Tech High. My heart has raced around a girl I liked. It raced when I told her I liked her, and asked her on a date and my heart raced when I was up on stage, rapping my lungs out to the song “V. 3005” by Childish Gambino from his newest album, Because the Internet. All these heart-pounding moments have one thing in common: they’re my life. I don’t think about my scar, my heart or anything I’ve ever had to overcome. I just live. Living is the greatest treasure I’ve received.

I’d like to say this to kids with HHS: you have survived one of the toughest surgeries for any human being. Be proud of your scar and your story. Love yourself, even in the hardest of times. The people who say bad things about your scars are insecure and probably wish that had a scar as awesome as yours too. To the parents: you are amazing and I truthfully hope and pray for your kids to make it through and live fulfilling lives thanks in part to you and your tenacity. My parents moved across the country for me to be with the best doctors they could get. I wasn’t going to write this article. I didn’t want to when my editor asked me about writing it because I didn’t want to cry. Though, right before I told her, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to write this article because that’s in my past now and I don’t like talking about it,” I thought to myself: do it for the kids who deserve to know it gets better, that there’s so much to do in life, that there's people to meet and love, experiences you couldn’t even dream of, passions that make you giddy, decisions that scare you afterwards, friends to watch sunsets with, and everything in between. Do I have hard days? Yes. Do I have days where I’ve just wanted to give up? Absolutely. Then I think to myself: I’ve survived tougher. This one, this article, is for my fellow heart babies!