He survived open-heart surgery at 3 months old.
More than a million people across the country and world have viewed his photo and commented on how
darn cute he is.
And he's my grandnephew.
Joey Powling Jr. was born in July with a condition known as tetralogy of Fallot, or TOF, which is, basically, a hole in the heart (although there is more to it than that) and, according to WebMD.com, the most common heart defect in children. Luckily, Joey was diagnosed while my niece, Sarah Powling of Dracut, was pregnant, and a plan was put in place to deal with the problem. That plan included open-heart surgery when he was 3 months old. The surgery was performed Oct. 25 at Boston Children's Hospital, and it was successful, though Joey and his folks, Sarah and Joe Sr., still have a long road ahead. Sarah took a photo five days after the surgery of Joey with a bemused smile on his face - as if saying, "Scar? What scar?" - and with a large incision on his chest and stomach, ending about an inch from his belly button and creating what looks like an exclamation point.
Her brother, Matt Tassone (my nephew and godson), posted the photo on reddit.com, a website where registered users can submit photos and articles, and other users can vote "up" or "down," thus determining its placement on the site's page.
As a caption, Matt wrote: "My 3month-old nephew just had openheart surgery. Chicks dig scars, right?"
Within a day, the photo had enough views and "up" votes to place it on the front page of the site. Since then, the photo has popped up on other websites, most notably that of Pirate FM radio in the United Kingdom, where it has more than a million likes; the website for a radio station in Tennessee; quickmeme.com, where someone captioned it "ridiculously good-looking surgery baby"; and imgur.com, where the photo has more than 560,000 views and hundreds of comments.
In addition to the Bruce Willis comment, some of my other favorites are: "That baby is manlier than me." "I didn't think I liked babies or had a biological clock. This pic has just complicated a lot for me. What a sweetheart."
"His expression ... 'Chill, I got this.' "The Successor to The Most Interesting Man Alive."
"What a legend."
Sarah was at first a little taken aback by the attention Joey received online, but she and Joe are now tickled by it. Before and after the surgery, she regularly posted updates on Facebook and on carepages.com, and the positive comments people left were uplifting. She and Joe feel the same with the comments they've been reading from people across the world. "It's a little strange but really cool," she said of Joey's growing notoriety. "When he was in the hospital, I'd get on Facebook to see what people were saying. It helped get me and Joe through it all. "I took that photo because it was the first time they uncovered the whole scar. Joe was playing with him, and I just wanted to get a picture of the scar, and he started smiling."
Though amused with little Joey's sudden online fame and support, Sarah and Joe also hope it translates into awareness of TOF. They are having bracelets made for TOF awareness that say "Joey hearts you" and "Don't turn blue, get a clue," a reference to the fact that babies with TOF often experience extreme blue coloring.
"We want to promote how if you're not diagnosed before you're born, you could have a different outcome," she says.
Of course, if you are diagnosed before you're born, as little Joey was, in addition to a strong chance of survival, you could just end up an Internet sensation and, as one imgur.com user calls him, "the most interesting baby in the world."
Dan Phelps' email address is dphelps@lowellsun.com. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter@Phelps Sun. Also, read his blog, Phelps RePhlections, at www.lowellsun.com.
