5-year-old sheds training wheels - and heart defect

Five days before his family rode bicycles in a fundraising ride in downtown Chicago, 5-year-old Benjamin Griesmeyer of Arlington Heights decided to get rid of his training wheels. And he did.

His mother was not surprised.

"He came out a fighter and he fights through everything," said Jaymi Griesmeyer. "He's a determined little boy. When he decides he's going to do something, he does it."

When Benjamin was born the arteries to his heart were attached on the wrong sides, which meant his body was not getting oxygenated blood. He had open heart surgery when he was 5 days old.

His parents, Jaymi and Chris, decided soon afterward to get involved with The Children's Heart Foundation, based in Lincolnshire.

One of their projects was getting their three young children up at 4:15 a.m. last week so they could join Nels Matson, 27, of Bradenton, Fla., at a bicycle shop on Michigan Avenue. Matson survived a congenital heart defect himself and decided to pedal across America from Santa Monica to New York this summer to heighten awareness about congenital heart defects and raise $100,000 for Children's Heart Foundation research.

Jaymi Griesmeyer took Benjamin and his brother, 6-year-old Matthew, to ride 11/2 miles with Matson when she learned they'd travel on a bike path by the Chicago museum campus, not on streets.

Benjamin sees his cardiologist once a year and at this point has no physical restrictions, said his mother.

"We were lucky they did pick up on the defect in the nursery at Northwest Community Hospital," said Jaymi Griesmeyer. "The problem is that some babies go home from the hospital, and it's never detected.

"The foundation is pushing to have the blood oxygen measured in all babies born. It's an easy way to pick up that something is wrong."

One out of 100 newborns in American is affected by this birth defect, the foundation said.

Benjamin and Matthew have a 3-year-old sister, Samantha, who attended the ceremony but did not make the bike trip.

Benjamin Griesmeyer has a site for donations at firstgiving.com.