Mind-blowing: A community of kindness

Honks and hollers from passing family, friends and classmates accented the rumble of tractors, fire trucks, a tractor-trailer and classic sports cars going by Caiden Obermeier’s Holland home.

The endless line had wrapped around Holland’s park moments before traveling the short distance by his home. Many held signs and balloons and threw ziplock bags of treats and gifts out to him and his family. One jokester even threw out the remainder of a roll of toilet paper — not a full roll though.

All were there to answer a call out from Erin Meyer. A close family friend, she had organized the parade as a show of support for Caiden, who will be undergoing several medical procedures on his heart Tuesday morning.

“It was mind-blowing,” Caiden said, overwhelmed but finding the perfect words for the moment.

His parents, Jennifer and Lee, echoed his response. The fantastic show of support from the Holland community left them smiling despite the tough day they would be facing Tuesday in Louisville at the Norton Children’s Heart Institute.

It isn’t the first time Caiden has been to the hospital for a procedure on his heart. “After he was born, he was a little blue, and they had a hard time keeping his oxygen levels up,” Jennifer explained.

Jennifer and Lee met with a cardiologist, and after an echocardiogram, Caiden was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot. Tetralogy means fourfold. Caiden’s heart had four problems: a hole between the lower chambers of the heart; an obstruction from the heart to the lungs; the aorta (blood vessel) lies over the hole in the lower chambers; the muscle surrounding the lower right chamber was overly thickened.

“The second doctor visit in the process, they told us that he couldn’t cry,” Lee said. “We told them that he didn’t cry that much and she (Caiden’s doctor) said, ‘no he can’t cry at all.'”

With the defects, crying could cause his heart to rupture. “We held him constantly for the first three months of his life,” Lee said.

He started life off being spoiled, Lee laughed adding that Caiden’s older brother Colton, 13, doesn’t give him any slack.

Then, at three months old, Caiden underwent open-heart surgery so his little body could get enough oxygen.

That surgery came with a warning from doctors. Caiden would likely need another procedure on his heart in the future. So when he started experiencing some chest pains recently, Lee and Jennifer weren’t surprised.

After going on a heart monitor for 28 days, Caiden’s doctors found that his heart was beating irregularly — arrhythmia — and they would have to perform the procedure planned for Tuesday to determine the cause and then attempt to fix it. Over what is expected to take between five to six hours, Caiden’s doctors plan on trying to replicate the arrhythmia, perform a cardiac catheterization, an electrophysiology study and possibly perform an ablation to stop the arrhythmia.

Caiden has also been diagnosed with a disease called DiGeorge Syndrome. DiGeorge Syndrome comes with a myriad of issues that are caused by a few missing genes in the 22nd chromosome. In Caiden’s case, those include the heart defect, some developmental issues, a cleft palate (Caiden missed his first day of kindergarten because of that surgery), and a suppressed immune system which in Caiden’s case has led to multiple sets of tubes in his ears.

His heart defect has caused him to have to forego taking part in most sports due to the potential for a collision. He also tires quickly. He does enjoy bowling though and recently received his first set of golf clubs.

But it is hard.

“As he’s getting older, it gets a little easier to explain (his condition) in ways but also sometimes harder for him to accept,” Jennifer said. “He wants to be like the other kids, and he wants to play sports. And, you know, he wants to be able to keep up.”

But if kindness were a cure for a congenital heart defect, Caiden would have the heart of a lion. Anyone who knows him immediately talks about his huge heart for helping others.

“Caiden is the kindest person you will ever meet,” Jennifer said. “He is always thinking of other people. He always wants to put a smile on their faces. He is a kid that if he sees someone being left out or having a hard day, he always wants to come up and include them.”

“He just has a very sweet soul,” Jennifer added.

Caiden adores his younger sister, Claire. She is his best friend at home, and his genuine heart of kindness spills over for her as well.

“For his birthday, Caiden bought her a baby doll with his own money so she wouldn’t feel left out,” Lee said.

The impact of Caiden’s kindness was evident in the crowd of people cheering and waving at him and his family on their little porch on Mary Street Monday evening. And as we look at this line of encouragement that filled the Holland Park about a half-mile from his home and we look at this pandemic overshadowing everything we do and we look at the kindness of a little boy facing a scary procedure, can we see that, while Caiden and his family laughed and waved from their porch and were encouraged, each person in that parade also took home a bit of encouragement and joy to help carry themselves through this time.

Mind-blowing.

When Caiden was asked what he was going to think about to help keep his mind off the procedure, he didn’t hesitate in his response.

“Today.”