photo by Eve Meinhardt/Paraglide Lorelei Brewer, 4, right, poses with her brother Cavan, 8. Lorelei only has half a heart. She has no left ventricle and 13 heart defects.

When you first meet Lorelei Brewer, she looks and acts like any other 4-year-old girl. She plays with her older brother, tumbles, colors and whispers that she is a spy just like the children in her favorite movie, “Spy Kids.”

Lorelei talks about her dad, 1st Lt. Steven Brewer, 1st Sustainment Command (Theater) being away for work and proudly points out pictures of her and her brother wearing “Army stuff.”

The similarities end when you see the scar peeking out of the top of her shirt, a reminder that she has 13 heart defects and no left ventricle.

Before she has even started kindergarten, Lorelei has had more surgeries than most of us will have in a lifetime. Three of those were open-heart surgeries. The first was performed hours after her birth.

This week is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week. According to the National Institutes of Health, congenital heart defects are the most common types of birth defects. The NIH states that eight of every 1,000 newborns are born with congenital heart defects, affecting more than 35,000 babies in the U.S. each year.

Lorelei’s mother, Chelle, said that her Family is able to stay strong thanks to the determination of her daughter and the support of the community.

“We are enrolled in (the Exceptional Family Member Program), participate in (Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation’s) Parents and Teacher’s program and have really thrived thanks to the support of military programs,” said Chelle.

Chelle is a strong advocate of Families enrolling EFMP. She said that any Family with an exceptional Family member owes it to themselves and the child to be a part of the program.
“All heart defect Families need to be enrolled in EFMP,” she said. “It’s not just for cases like ours, though. Anyone with a chronic physical, psychological or educational issue needs to be a part of the program. It’s there to help and the Army’s taken good care of us.”

Chelle is not the only advocate in the Family. Lorelei’s brother Cavan, 8, also wants people to realize that children need help. A few years ago, he gave all his Christmas presents away to the children staying at the Ronald McDonald House, a place his sister spends a lot of time at. He participated in the March of Dimes walk-a-thon and collected 30,000 soda tabs for a drive. Since his sister’s birth, he’s always been by her bedside — placing stickers on her forehead and laying there with her, watching cartoons, said Chelle.

“It makes me feel bad,” said Cavan. “She’s gone so much and I miss her.”

The siblings make the most of the time at home together, chasing each other upstairs and staging a fight in the entryway.

Their mom smiled at them and with a sigh said, “We try to be as normal as possible.”

For more information on Fort Bragg’s EFMP program, visit www.fortbraggmwr.com/efmp.php or call 907-3395.