COLORADO SPRINGS — The roar of dinosaurs and the speedy zoom of race cars are only a small part to the world of playtime for one Colorado Springs five-year-old. When it comes to choosing a favorite, dinosaurs are at the top of Fabian DeAnda’s list, who has his pick from the mighty tyrannosaurus rex to graceful pterodactyls.

“It’s fun when it’s a little boy because then I can relive my boyhood through him,” the father of Fabian, Fabian DeAnda, said. “Toys and things like that, we like to share experiences and it’s fun.”

Fabian and his dad battled their dinosaurs against each other on Monday afternoon.

As father and son verse each other T-Rex against T-Rex, one would never guess the battles this 5-year-old first faced at birth. Bobbie Romero, Fabian’s mother, recalls the moments when she first learned her son would be born with a rare heart condition called Hypoplastic right heart syndrome.

“I was 27 weeks, and I was having my anatomy scan and they told me that they couldn’t really quite see the baby’s heart,” Fabian’s mother, Bobbie Romero said. “Maybe he was laying a different way, but she could not see the whole thing, so they sent me to a specialist.”

After seeing the specialist, Romero received the news that her baby “doesn’t have a normal heart” and was referred to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora. During their time there, the medical team including Dr. James Jaggers, the Chief of Congenital Cardiac Surgery, offered guidance and support in understanding this intricate heart condition.

“Then when I got to the cardiology team there, they were amazing,” Romero said. “They made sure we understood everything from best case to worst case and every time we went up there, it was just a great stay.”

Courtesy: Bobbie Romero, Fabian’s mother

Fabian was delivered at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora because he would need interventions immediately from the medical team. Romero described the minutes after he was born, “I was able to hug him, kiss him really quick, and then they whisked him away…”

At Children’s Hospital Colorado, there are three stages of the single ventricle surgery with the Norwood procedure, the Glenn procedure, the Fontan procedure. Fabian’s inner strength shone brightly from the start, as he did not undergo the Norwood procedure.

“Fabian needed a couple of different surgeries,” said Dr. Jaggers. “Most kids with his kind of heart defect will need, on average, three surgeries to get through the whole process, but Fabian was lucky enough to only need two of them.”

When it came time for his first open heart surgery, Romero recalled the remarkable strength exhibited by her little warrior.

“I mean his first open heart surgery, we weren’t in the hospital very long and then his second open heart when he was four, they prepared us to be in the ICU for 48 hours to 72 hours, he was in there for about 24 hours,” Romero said. “Like he woke up from anesthesia and was like, I want to stand up and walk around.”

Although Fabian is left with a scar, there is no doubt of his resilience. His parents created Fabian’s Warriors, a campaign aimed to help with medical expenses along with the goal to donate for more research.

Fabian’s parents wore their Fabian’s Warriors shirts in the interview with FOX21 and showed the meaningful message on the back.

When asked about advice for other families dealing with congenital heart defects, Fabian’s dad said, “just be strong, push through, be attentive to what they’re saying, what they’re telling you so you can when you learn all those things about what’s going on with your child’s heart, it’s beneficial because then you know what clues to look for if something is different from what it should be.”

Fabian acts like any five-year-old who could be seen on Monday afternoon demonstrating his football kick.

Not only during World Heart Month but every month of the year, Fabian and his parents are on a mission to share their story and promote awareness on congenital heart defects.

“Fabian’s condition’s rare, but congenital heart defects happen one in 100, so they affect more kids than childhood cancer does and not a lot of people know about it,” Romero said. “So that’s why I want to get as much awareness as childhood cancer as heart defects.”

Children’s Hospital Colorado offers detailed information online regarding the various types of congenital heart defects and how common this birth defect is. Dr. Jaggers also provided insight for ensuring the well-being and health of children diagnosed with this particular birth defect.

“I’ve seen a number of kids do well into their twenties and thirties and have very active lifestyles,” said Dr. Jaggers. “But some kids have trouble with this kind of a physiology of their heart and so we have to watch them real close. We have to watch them as they grow up and as they grow to make sure they don’t have any complications of this kind of physiology.”

Fabian hugged the plush toy helicopter from Children’s Hospital Colorado where he received care from.

While Fabian behaves like any other five-year-old, racing like Lightning McQueen and battling dinosaurs, it’s evident he comes from a whole family of warriors, ready to take on this unforeseen challenge and help others in return.

“I tell everybody he’s a normal kid with a special heart,” said Fabian’s dad.