Winona’s Hospital Expenses

Megan and Dennis welcomed their twins, Easton and Winona, on April 29th at 35 weeks and 5 days. Megan and Dennis didnt even get a chance to hold their sweet girl. Winona was born with a congenital heart defect called Truncus Arteriosos with VSD so she was rushed to Children’s Hospital in DC hours after delivery to get her heart stabilized.

Truncus arteriosus is a birth defect of the heart. It occurs when the blood vessel coming out of the heart in the developing baby fails to separate completely during development, leaving a connection between the aorta and pulmonary artery. She also has a ventricular septal defect (VSD) — a hole in the wall between the right ventricle and left ventricle.


The plan was originally to wait a few weeks before doing the open heart surgery so Winona could get a little bigger since she was born early, but unfortunately her levels started dropping so the had to do the surgery earlier than expected. They completed the open heart surgery on May 6th at only a week old.

Update- May 9th, 2021

Winonas heart function is starting to improve, but her kidneys are failing. They had to do an incision on her stomach and set her up on dialysis.

Update- May 12th, 2021

They did a cat scan and found that Winona has a blood clot in her brain and her neck so they are treating it with blood thinner, but otherwise, things are looking good. She finally has her chest closed from surgery and she’s slowly waking up. 


Update- May 15th, 2021

They found some fluid in two areas of Winonas lungs but she is showing more signs of improvement. She wiggles her little toes and has opens her eyes to say hi to mom and dad!