02/05/2023
Let me tell you about a spunky, sassy, and courageous little fighter!
Her name is Addilyn, and she's only 3 years old!
We took portraits at the end of the year to celebrate 1 year post open heart surgery.
Heres her story, written by her momma
"At 2 months old, her pediatrician detected a heart murmur and sent us to a pediatric cardiologist for further testing. After an ekg and echocardiogram, it was confirmed that she had a large ventricular septal defect (VSD). Basically, a hole in the wall of muscle that separates the left and right ventricle. She didn’t show too many symptoms and her quality of life seemed good, so we were told we can just keep an eye on everything and have her see the cardiologist every 3 months to monitor it. After we moved here [to Wyoming] (we were in Florida when she was born) we found out that the altitude actually helped her defect and her body was trying to repair itself. Some tissue started growing around the hole, making it slightly smaller.
Unfortunately, after about a year, the tissue stopped growing and the hole was still bigger than the doctors liked. That’s when open heart surgery came onto the table. So on November 3rd 2021 at two years old, she went into a 5 hour open heart surgery to repair the hole. She had various follow ups after surgery, and at her 6 month post-op appointment, she was cleared to stretch out to yearly checkups. She can live her life the way she wants: no limitations. She will, however, need to see a cardiologist to monitor everything for the rest of her life. Other than that, so far so good! "