Kansas City,
23
October
2015
|
14:28 PM
America/Chicago

Young fan sends inspiring message to Royals before surgery

Gabriel had heart surgery on the same day the team played Game 5 in the ALDS

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The pressure was on for the Royals Wednesday night-- but the team has a special little super-fan also putting up a fight. As the team prepared for ALDS Game 5, hoping to knock out the Astros, three-year-old Gabriel was knocking out his third open heart surgery.

"I knew his surgery would be this day, and when they won the other night, and I knew their game would be Wednesday, I was like, that`s pretty awesome," said Vanessa Walker, Gabriel's mom.

Almost three years ago, at Walker's doctors visit at 20 weeks, an ultrasound was done to find out sex of her baby. But doctors found more than that.

"They detected a single ventricle," added Walker.

A single ventricle is a congenital heart defect due to abnormal development of the fetal heart. A series of operations are necessary to correct it.

"At five days old, he had his first open heart surgery," she said.

Gabriel was born at Children's Mercy hospital. He was 76 days old before he came home, and had a second open heart surgery almost three weeks later.

"With his heart condition, there`s three surgeries that are required for these children to make it to adulthood, and this is the final one in those stages," Walker said.

Read and see the full story via Fox 4.