Aaron's Heart of Gold

Aaron has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. He was born with half a heart, and has 1 lung. He also is on the Autism Spectrum. Through the years he’s had surgeries to try and make his heart most stable. December 2nd, 2020 was a life changing day for these parents as they found out their baby’s heart is no longer stable and could go into heart failure at any time. Aaron is only 4 years old and deserves the best, more functioning heart so he can live life to the fullest. The doctors have said that Aaron will need to wait until his heart fails in order for him to be put on the heart transplant list. 

In February 2021, Aaron received another “corrective surgery” to help clean out the area in his chest cavity. 

In March 2021, Aaron’s Family was given three options to help Aaron sustain a healthier life. Today was a big day for the Wheeler family. They met with many doctors, specialists and many people on Aaron’s team at Children’s Hospital today. To move forward to improve Aaron’s function they were given three options: 

1: Go forward with the Fontan Heart procedure

 ( the 3rd and final Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome Surgery, which they did not do in December 2020 because they deemed he was not a good candidate for)

They said that Aaron would be likely to have a 2% chance of survival if this option is selected. 

2: Heart Transplant 

There will be ALOT of training, pre authorizations, tests, conversations etc that would take place before continuing with this option. Depending on the donor Aaron would receive, there is a likelihood that a plastic surgeon would have to make certain parts of the heart to connect it all in his body. The medicine that Aaron would take could not be missed as he could pass at any time without it. The 1st year will be the hardest but if surviving the first year they estimate he could live an additional 10-18 years. His development will most likely regress as well. 

3. Nothing 

Continue life as normal and continue the medicine he is currently on, continue oxygen treatments etc. However, the treatment team does not believe that Aaron has much time left on this earth with the heart he has. 

 In April 2021, Aaron’s team continues to do further testing to see make sure he will be a good candidate for the heart transplant.