Heart Surgery for Scarlett

In February of this year, Scarlett's parents relocated from Ohio to Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in Florida after learning that Scarlett would be born with a severe Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. This condition prevents proper development of the lungs and compressed her heart against the right ribcage. In Ohio, she had only a 20% chance of survival.

In March, Scarlett was born, and then underwent hernia repair, where doctors learned that she had 20% lung volume. She was also placed on ECMO (a form of heart-lung bypass for critically sick babies) after crashing at 2 days old. She remained on ECMO for 14 days. After 5 surgeries and 99 days in the hospital, she was finally discharged and her family was able to relocate back to Ohio. 

After returning to Ohio, we learned that Scarlett requires open heart surgery to repair a hypoplastic aortic arch and to remove a band of tissue from the mitral valve. Scarlett is scheduled to undergo heart surgery on September 25th at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. 

We ran a successful YouCaring fundraiser to support their relocation to Johns Hopkins in preparation for Scarlett's birth. We wanted to show their family support as they relocate to Cincinnati for her heart surgery and for the duration of her recovery.