Dad’s Selfie with Son Born with Heart Defect Goes Viral
The photo of a father in Virginia posing with his young son who was born with a rare congenital heart defect has gone viral.
First-time dad Robert Selby tells his son Chace Elija that "he'll never be in a fight alone." That's because 3-year-old Chace is fighting a rare heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it affects five out of every 10 thousand babies.
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel talked about the same defect that is affecting son, William, on his television program earlier in May.
On October 2013, when Chace was born, the 33-year-old Selby said he wasn't prepared to hear that his son was born with a congenital heart defect.
"I was devastated because ... you never prepare for the what-ifs," he told ABC News. "You prepare for the gender, the baby shower, everything positive. But you never prepare for that what if, like what if my child has this type of defect or something is really wrong with him?" But now, the Selby family is showing how their hearts pump love through their veins by sharing awesome images of Chace conquering life. The viral selfie of Selby and Chase wearing matching feeding tubes is getting a lot of love from social media. In the comments section, many are sending Chase their support while others are calling Selby an "amazing father." Within six days of the photo being posted, it has over 10,000 likes already.
Selby says he's not about the likes. Instead, he just wants to bring social awareness about the rare heart defect and to tell his son that he can do anything.
"(I do it) to show how far he has come and to let him know that he can do anything, even with a heart condition... He shouldn't limit him (self) to anything in life. He's no different than anyone else."