Sometimes it's called criminal

By Carrie K. Hutchens

I was reading, "A mother faces her day of reckoning", by Nancy Cambria (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 01/17/2008), which begins, "ST. CHARLES COUNTY--Rebecca Smith was born Nov. 17, 1992, with a heart so leaky surgeons squeezed it tight with a sliver of Gore-tex no wider than a strand of dental floss.

There were other holes to repair in the newborn's heart, but surgeons at Texas Children's Hospital were optimistic the heart would grow enough to remove the band and fix it.

It took 12 years and finally the efforts of a school nurse to press Becca's mother and stepfather to take her to a doctor. The exam by St. Peters pediatrician Judith Stucki-Simeon found Becca was severely deprived of oxygen and prompted an immediate trip to a cardiologist. The tiny thread, once a lifeline, had been strangling Becca's growing heart, turning her lips blue and flattening the tips of her fingers. (Full Article)