It's about helping children with cardiac problems.
Read on to learn about Hallie's story.
Hi, my name is Hallie. On 1/7/16 I had heart surgery at Cohen Children's Medical Center. They have changed my life forever and now I am looking to give back to the Division of Pediatric Cardiology. This is my story... I was born 3 1/2 weeks early with 3 holes in my heart and was immediately placed under cardiac care. One hole, they said, was from being born premature and it closed pretty quickly. The second hole was a Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). That one closed on its own. The third hole was an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) and, by age 3, I was told it was negligible. The doctor said I could live my life with that and no longer needed to be under his care. At age 6, my school requested that I go for a recheck and was again told that I could live with the negligible ASD. In November 2015, I noticed that my right arm was shorter than my left arm. My mom took me to a pediatric orthopedist at Cohen Children's Medical Center. He put all the pieces of my medical history together and recommended I see a geneticist. He felt that my heart defects from birth, my shoulder dysplasia, scoliosis, a displaced bone in the short arm, and other loose joints could all be connected. On 12/10/15, we went to a geneticist at Cohen's. She examined me and was concerned about the sound of my heart. She recommended we see a cardiologist. One week later the cardiologist determined that I had a large ASD, the right side of my heart was enlarged, and my lungs were affected. She sent the test results off to a surgical team at Cohen's who determined that it was actually 2 holes and that the best option for me would be to have surgery. If I didn't have the surgery, it would cause problems in my future. On 1/5/16, I met with my surgeon at the hospital. He explained to me what they were going to use and what they were going to do. I was able to touch everything that was going to be inside of my heart. He drew diagrams for me and talked about all the things that could possibly happen. They even had a "child specialist" give me a virtual tour of everything I would see on the day of my surgery. It turns out that my surgeon had to use 2 devices to close the holes in my heart. Between the 2 holes, I was missing about 1 inch of wall between the top 2 chambers of my heart. My heart and lungs are healing now. The doctors at Cohen's saved my life and extended my life. My Bat Mitzvah is coming up and part of that includes doing a mitzvah project. A mitzvah project is a way to ensure that each Bar/Bat Mitzvah has meaning that is unique. Charity is one way to make my Bat mitzvah special to me. I've decided to raise money for research at Cohen Children's Medical Center to find out what they don't already know about what I have. Since I am a competitive dancer, I am calling the fundraiser "Dance For A Heart." Please help me raise money for the Division of Pediatric Cardiology. Thank you.
