Darien 'Wonder Boy' Represents American Heart Association

They call him Wonder Boy.

In many ways, Marty Viau is actually very ordinary. He likes to play Nintendo Wii. He goes to preschool at . He fights with his big sister, Vivian.

But the very fact that he now lives such a relatively ordinary life is what makes Marty so remarkable.

Marty was born with an atrial ventricular septal defect — simply put, a hollow heart. There was a large hole in the walls that typically divide the human heart into four separate chambers.

Through an extraordinary series of events, Marty is now a thriving 5-year-old boy.

The American Heart Association of Chicago recognized Marty for his strength by selecting him as a local ambassador for this year’s Jump Rope for Heart campaign.

Marty and his mom, Gerry Viau, have traveled to seven area schools so far, including and his own school, Concord, to share his story and help the students kick off the fundraiser.

“Just the fact of what he’s been through, Marty can help educate kids that heart disease is not just an old person’s disease,” said American Heart Association representative Mary Lou Torrison, who works primarily with DuPage County schools.

It’s an opportunity Viau said she’s grateful for. She knows Marty can help teach kids about heart disease. And Marty loves the novelty of it. She said he adores the applause at the end of each visit.

But there are other reasons why she loves sharing her son’s story.

“A number of times we thought we were going to lose him,” she said. “But he always made it out on top. I like to brag about that part.”

About nine in every 1,000 children are born with some type of heart defect, according to the American Heart Association. Most children born with Marty’s heart defect are successfully treated in one surgery.

“He was in the 10 percent who have horrible complications,” Viau said.

Finding hope

Marty was in and out of the hospital 25 times before his first birthday, sometimes for as long as a month. As an infant, he couldn’t swallow because of an enlarged left atrium. Viau said she had to pump breast milk and feed it to him with an eyedropper.

At six months Marty had his first open heart surgery. Doctors patched the internal walls of his heart with GORE-TEX, the same material often used to make waterproof winter jackets.

They also made two valves during that surgery, but the valves didn’t take.

Three months later, Marty was back in the operating room for a valve replacement. Those valves, too, stopped working.

While mitral valve replacement is a fairly routine surgery in adults, it’s much more dangerous on a tiny heart.

Viau started to do her own research and found a doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee who was using spironolactone, a medicine normally used to treat heart disease in adults, on children.

Marty continued to have trouble eating because 70 percent of his blood flows backwards, which causes severe nausea and vomiting. The doctors nourished him by inserting a feeding tube that led directly into his intestines.

The goal between the medicine and the feeding tube was to help Marty get stronger so he had a better chance of surviving the surgery.

“We thought it would help for six months,” Viau said. “But it’s lasted for four years.”

"Every day I'm so amazed"

Marty will still need his mitral valve replaced one day, but as long as he’s still growing, Viau said the surgery can wait and his chances for survival increase. He had his feeding tube removed in September and, for the first time, he ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pizza.

In his recovery, Marty embodies the power of continued research into childhood heart disease, Torrison said. As soon as she heard his story, she knew he was an ideal ambassador for the AHA.

“You look at kids who 20 years ago wouldn’t have survived now living long, healthy lives once they get the problem repaired,” she said.

As Marty stood to share his story at Concord, eager to get home and play with his new soccer ball, the hope he represents is clear.

“Every day I’m so amazed,” Viau said. “He has so much energy. He gets to go to school. He looks like a normal kid.”