Story
Name
Avery O'Neill
Injury/Illness
Heart Disease
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with Avery we found out she had Transposition of the Great Arteries, which means her pulmonary and aorta were in the wrong spots and she would require open heart surgery soon after she was born. Our goal was to get as close to 39 weeks as we could due to my type one diabetes. Avery was born at 37 weeks via urgent c-section because they were worried about how much oxygen she was getting. She came out not breathing and immediately had to be placed on the ventilator. Two days later she went into cardiac arrest and was given CPR for over an hour and was placed on ECMO to take over for her heart and lungs. She since then has been put on kidney dialysis, has had 2 strokes, started having seziures, failed extubation twice, and was diagnosed with tracheomalasia and a paralyzed vocal cord. We have finally recieved the very long awaited surgery date of April 8th to repair the heart defect. Everything about this journey has been an uphill climb.