An eight-year-old Alabama boy is currently fighting for his life after going into sudden cardiac arrest.
For his entire life, Jace Curd, from Pell City, has suffered heart defects that make it difficult for blood to pump throughout his body, but was stable for the past several years.
His mother, Amy Curd, said doctors told her he would likely need a heart transplant eventually, but not yet.
On March 15, Jace was home from school - sick with a cough - and playing video games when he began gasping for air and turning blue.
He was rushed to the hospital, where medical staff told Curd that Jace had gone into sudden cardiac arrest, an electrical problem that causes the heart to stop beating.
And because he'd been without oxygenated blood for up to 20 minutes, he'd suffered severe brain damage.
In an exclusive email interview with DailyMail.com, Curd revealed her devastation when she was told that her son's condition would likely not improve and how she felt hope that he would in fact recover when she saw him smile for the first time.
Jace Curd, eight (left and right), from Pell City, Alabama, was born with several heart defects including a hole in his heart and a defective mitral valve, a valve that lets blood flow from one chamber of the heart
He had four open heart surgeries before age four and has had a pacemaker replaced four times. Pictured: Jace in the hospital after suffering cardiac arrest
Curd told DailyMail.com that she was five months pregnant with Jace when her OBGYN told her that Jace's aorta and pulmonary artery were on the same side and backwards.
The aorta is the largest artery in the body and the pulmonary artery carries blood from the right ventricle of the heart to the lung.
When Jace was born, doctors discovered several more problems including a hole in his heart and a defective mitral valve (a valve that lets blood flow from one chamber of the heart).
'When he came out, they said I don't see how he's still alive,' said Curd. 'He's always been a fighter.'
Jace had his first open heart surgery when he was just 12 days old, and he had three more before he was four years old.
Doctors told Curd that they did all they could to repair his heart and that, in the future, he would likely need a heart transplant.
The eight-year-old has also undergone four operations to replace his pacemaker, a device placed inside the body that helps control abnormal heart rhythms.
The first device doctors implanted was not powerful enough, the second had a broken wire and the third left him with a staph infection in his chest.
However, Curd said that every time he was in the hospital, he recovered 'beautifully'.
'His body never showed how sick he was ever and you wouldn't know anything was wrong with him unless he told you,' she said.
'We thought it wasn't time for transplant yet because of how well he was doing.'
On the week of March 11, Jace stayed home from school all week because he was sick with a cough.
Curd took him to the emergency room on Thursday,
