We are using this site to keep friends & family updated on Haley’s journey. We sincerely appreciate your support, prayers, and words of hope and encouragement.
During the routine anatomy scan before she was born, we found out Haley has a very rare congenital heart defect called CC-TGA (congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries- also called L-TGA) This means that the two lower ventricles in her heart are switched, or transposed. So her blood is going to all the right places, but not through the correct path. [In everyone, one ventricle pumps blood to the body, and one to the lungs. The ventricle that pumps to the lungs is much weaker, and for Haley, this is the ventricle having to pump to her body right now. This ventricle is not able to pump to the body for a full lifetime.] She has been on blood pressure medication her whole life to help keep her heart healthy.
After extensive research, we chose to take Haley to Dr. Pedro del Nido at Boston Children’s Hospital for her surgeries.
She had her first open heart surgery in August 2020, at 2 1/2 years old. A pulmonary artery (PA) band was placed with the hope of strengthening the ventricle that is currently pumping to her lungs, in order to get it ready to pump to her body. A second surgery was needed in May 2021 to tighten the band.
The PA band was successful, and Haley is ready for the “big surgery” (called a double-switch) to essentially ‘re-route’ all the blood to go through the right path. We will be traveling to Boston on October 31st, and the surgery will be on November 3. It will be a 6-8 hour procedure, and we hope to be home by mid to late November. The plan is for this to be her last surgery, and after a few months she will even be medication-free!
If you pray, please add Haley, her medical team, and her family to your prayer list. We will keep this page as updated as possible while we work to get our girl better!
