Warming Hearts: Blanket Drive For Young Cardiac Patients

NJ's Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week closes, along with a local blanket drive, on Thursday

There is a small, hand-made quilt that lies at the foot of Christopher Olivadotti’s bed. He’s had it since he left the hospital after his first open-heart surgery, the one he had when he was just two days old. Christopher is 9 years old now. He’s survived three more surgeries to mend his heart from a complicated defect. And there will doubtless be more turns in the cardiac unit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where a kindly stranger nearly a decade ago was moved to acknowledge his fight for a lifetime with a small token – a little warm comfort for someone so small who had already seen so much. It’s a kindness that Christopher’s mother, Alexandra Scheininger, is trying to spread around for other veterans of the hospital’s cardiac …

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