Katie Rowan is a gorgeous 16 year old girl who has her whole life ahead of her. Katie was born with a defect of her heart, and has been walking around for 16 years completely unaware of it. Complications started to become more serious earlier this year and she has been back and forth with specialists trying to pin point the problem. Three months ago they were able to figure out she was not receiving enough blood due to one side of her heart pumping irregularly . Doctors immediately scheduled her for open heart surgery within the month. Katie under went her first open heart surgery September 9. With the best surgeons they completed the surgery, but they realized it was far more complicated then they had ever seen so it took another two separate surgeries before being able to locate and fix the problem properly. Katie recovered after a little over a week and came home. After two days Katie was having chest pains and doctors found two huge blood clots and was immediately transported via emergency helicopter back to Children’s hospital in the middle of the night. Despite going through this traumatic real life night mare, Katie has been so strong and brave this whole time. Since that emergency helicopter to the hospital, Katie has been back in the hospital since September 26. She has been up and down with improving, but as of right now is unable to breathe on her own requiring her to have a breathing tube down her throat. She is in and out of sleep, but is so frustrated when she is conscious. It’s absolutely devastating for our family to be seeing her so miserable and in tremendous amounts of pain. Katie has a long road ahead of her on recovery. We are hoping she will be home by Thanksgiving time, but there are no guarantees. We understand everyone is going through hard times, but we greatly appreciate anything. If anything, our family could use prayers and love sent our way during this time.