Warrior Wednesday

Remi, 3yrs old

Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia

Remi was diagnosed an hour and a half after he was born. Then 12 hours after birth he was med flighted to the next state over to Dallas Children’s along with his dada, while I had to stay in Louisiana until discharged after having a c-section. At 3 days old Remi opened his eyes for the first time when I was finally able to be with him. At 4 days old, he had a cath procedure to place a stent in his heart, we were then told we needed to live in Dallas to be near the hospital until Remi was big enough for open heart surgery. So we lived at the Ronald McDonald House! Remi had weekly appointments and ECHO’s done, we had to track his weight daily, along with meds, his feeding intake, etc. Remi kept growing at a steady pace (he was always called the biggest heart baby they’ve ever seen since he was a newborn, they couldn’t believe it!) and had his open heart surgery not long before he turned 6 months old. The following year, Remi needed to have another cath procedure to balloon some narrowing, but since then he has been doing amazing! He is now 3 years old and about to celebrate his 3 year Heartiversary on August 18th. He has annual cardiology appointments, the doctors say he will most likely eventually need another heart surgery to replace the conduit he has, but his current conduit is pretty large and will hopefully last him another 10 years! The journey so far has been scary and unexpected, but we couldn’t be prouder from our sweet, strong, and brave heart warrior!