LITTLE FIGHTER—Mike Nash visits his son Cameron at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles earlier this year. On March 11 Cameron died of a congenital heart abnormality. He was seven months old. Cameron Nash was a fighter. Born with a serious heart defect, each day he fought for his life.

But after nearly seven months, the tiny Simi baby with the sparkling eyes and broken heart simply couldn’t fight any longer.

On March 11, a little more than a month after the Simi Valley Acorn ran a story on his struggle (“Growing up with a broken heart,” Feb. 5), Cameron died.

Cameron was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a congenital abnormality in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped and cannot pump blood as it should.

By the time he was 6 months old, Cameron had undergone two open-heart surgeries—part of a three-stage surgical process to reconstruct his heart—and countless other procedures.

For several months his parents, Mike and Sandy Nash, didn’t talk about Cameron coming home since he’d spent most of his life at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and there was more progress to be made.

But doctors said Cameron came through his second surgery like a champ. By the end of January, the family had renewed hope and began to talk about finally bringing their baby home.

First, though, so that he could eat more easily and grow more quickly, Cameron needed to have a feeding tube inserted into his stomach, a relatively minor procedure. After all he’d already been through, Sandy didn’t think the worst would happen.

“It was one last thing to get him to come home, it was so promising, and then he had this one procedure and maybe it was too much too soon,” Sandy said. “He fought for seven months and I think his heart just said it couldn’t do it anymore.”

Sandy said Cameron’s will to live pulled family and friends together, and the response from strangers who read the article in the Acorn was “overwhelming.”

“People I don’t even know were sending us money. It was just incredible,” she said. “This lady came into my work and asked for me. She said she had read the story and wanted to give me a hug.”

The Nashes are grateful for all the support they’ve received.

“Our family wants to say thank you to everybody; you can’t say thank you enough,” Sandy said, adding, “It’s one thing to have a death in the family, but when you have a child that has passed, it’s different because that’s not the way it’s supposed to happen. . . . I tell people every day, cherish what you have.”

A funeral service for Cameron will be held at 11 a.m. Tues., April 13 at Shepherd of the Hills, 19700 Rinaldi St. in Porter Ranch.

The family has requested that donations be made in lieu of flowers. They have opened an account at Bank of America. Donations can be made in Sandy, Mike or Cameron’s name.

The Nashes’ 2-year-old daughter, Akina, is too young to fully understand what has happened, but she knows her brother isn’t coming home from the hospital. Sandy told her he is in the sky, so at night Akina looks to the stars for Cameron.

Though he was only on this earth for seven months, Mike and Sandy will forever remember Cameron and the impact he had on their lives.

“I’ll never forget. It was a short time that I had him, but it felt like a lifetime,” Sandy said.