Sunshine and Blood Thinners

For those of you who don't know, I have two children who had heart defects.  One we discovered pre-natally and were able to fix the massive hole in his heart when he was three months old.  You can learn more about Jacob at http://www.downrightliving.com - my non-profit organization created because of my experiences with him.

Our second child, Elisha, didn't discover her heart defect until she was in college training to be a Division I thrower for Track and Field. She had a mini-stroke and we began searching for answers, only to discover she had a hole in her heart that needed to be fixed.

As a result, she has been on blood thinners for several months as her heart has been creating scar tissue over the device used to fix the hole.  One of the side effects of blood thinners is that she is hyper sensitive to sunshine and burns easily.  This is not a good thing for a girl who participates in outdoor track, loves to sunbathe, works at an outdoor concert venue during the summer months, or does a variety of other outdoor activities.

After coming home from an afternoon in the sun with a new sunburn, I gave Elisha some suntan lotion to take with her wherever she goes.  It was given to me to test and I figured if anyone could validate it's ability, Elisha could.

She accepted the bottle and went off on a week-long trip with her friend.  When I asked her how it worked, she said it was great!  There were no problems at all and the SPF 30 seemed to be just what she needed to keep from burning during her outings.

Wahoo! This stuff passed the test!