{ Hello! }

My name is Gavin. I am 11 months old. I was born with a genetic disorder called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency that caused my liver to go into failure. I was misdiagnosed for 3 months and underwent emergency surgery before they found out what was wrong. I am on the Organ Donation List and am waiting for my "gift of life" so I can have a liver transplant. You can read about my story by clicking {here}. Thank you for visiting my online journal!

*It is our deepest sorrow to inform you that Gavin passed away while waiting to receive a liver transplant. He was only 14 days away from his 1st birthday. Please, if you haven't already, sign up to be a registered organ donor today and talk to your loved ones about your wishes: http://www.donatelife.net/. Thank you all so much for your love and support during this last year.

{ This is my family }

{ This is my family }

{ A Mother's Plea }

If you only read one thing on this website, let it be {this}.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Gavin's Story published



One of the writers at the American Liver Foundation heard about Gavin's story and wrote an article about him. It's on the front page of their website:

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Gifts from Gavin- new journey, new blog

I decided to start a new blog. I have been thinking about it a lot, trying to decide if I would, or if I would just continue to post here, or if I would make it public or private...finally I decided that there have been so many people that have shared in Gavin's story, followed him during all of his ups and downs, read all of our feelings and emotions and how we were dealing with it, gave us so much love and support...that I will go ahead and write about how our lives are now and how we are dealing with this. If anything I think it will help me to have an outlet, but perhaps maybe it can help others going through this to not feel as alone, and maybe help those who haven't gone through this to better understand "those that mourn".

Also, I hope that eventually I will be able to continue creating awareness about liver diease, Alpha-1 and organ donation. I feel like there is so much more I can do, that I *want* to do...I don't want anyone else to ever lose a child to this. It is like losing Gavin all over again. So hopefully within the next year I will have something planned. I know we will at least always do something on Gavin's birthday each year (Oct 6th), most likely have a toy drive for the hospital...but I also have other ideas I am thinking about.

The new blog is called "Gifts From Gavin"... http://giftsfromgavin.blogspot.com/