Katie OShaughnessy

Katie is a sweet little girl who is a twin and has three brothers with autism with other medical issues. She was born May 11, 2005 born at 34 weeks but she was the bigger twin which was good since she needed open heart surgery as soon as she could. She was missing most of her av canal and went into heart failure after only a short time. She had open heart surgery at 4 months old and recovered quickly. She also has other medical issues that is common for a child with down syndrome. Currently she has a tube that we have to flush everyday or she gets very backed up which would mean a hospital stay. She also has two heart valves that has started to leak we are hoping to put off another open heart surgery as long as we can. She has sleep apnea which might be making her heart issues worse so we just did another sleep study to see how bad and what the options are to treat it. She has gained weight just in the last couple of months so the doctors are worried that there might be more going on with her so we will be doing more testing.

Even though Katie is non verbal she always finds a way to communicate with everyone. She lights up any room and loves to give everyone she can a hug. She always finds a way to be helpful. Even if its just holding a door for someone she always finds a way to be useful.