In the most heartwarming story we’ve ever seen emerge from the Ohio State-Michigan college football rivalry, a 10-year-old Buckeyes fan worried that having heart surgery at Michigan would make him love the Wolverines.Ivan Applin lives in Toledo, Ohio, but needed to have an operation to fix holes in his heart at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. According to a story at UofMHealthBlogs.org, when pediatric cardiologist Dr. Ronald Grifka discussed the procedure with Applin, the fourth grader had only one huge concern about his heart.”He asked if the Michigan doctors were going to make his heart love University of Michigan instead of Ohio State,” his mother Jennifer said, laughing.No, he would wake up loving the Buckeyes just as much as he ever did, Dr. Grifka assured him. The procedure would also mean he could better enjoy his favorite activities, like soccer, for many more years to come.The surgery went smoothly and Applin was walking and eating later the same day and able to return home the following morning. More importantly to him, his healing heart remains devoted to Ohio State, which plays Michigan on Nov. 28 in Ann Arbor.
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