Todd and Karen Wanek Family Program for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome — Cause to Cure
HLHS. HLHS. Hypo. Plastic. Left heart. Syndrome.
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
Whoa, that's a lot of words!
What is HLHS?
HLHS is when you're missing the bottom left of your heart.
The left side of the heart, it doesn't pump blood as well as the right side. Kids who have HLHS, they all have like a big scar, because they had to have open heart surgery.
I got the surgery when I was a baby.
Three open heart surgeries – two when she was just born, and one when she was two.
I just found out I was going to have a sister, and she was just born, but then she had to be rushed to get surgery, so it was kind of hard.
My brother Henry had three surgeries.
I have a scar on my heart.
He has scars on his heart.
I have stitches on my heart. I needed help.
Children with HLHS may require a heart transplant later in life.
The power of teamwork
What makes a strong team is that people will help you feel better.
I have a team. I have doctors. I have nurses.
And they try and help me feel better.
Everybody's working together to help Sophie stay healthy and feel like a normal girl. There's a lot of teams helping a child with HLHS.
What we all really want, I guess, is just a cure for HLHS.
What is hope?
Hope is when you want something to happen.
Hope is when you have confidence in something.
HLHS research is like a lightsaber is to a Jedi Knight. The more research that we put into HLHS, the more lives will be saved, and the more ... closer we can get to developing a cure.
I hope they all — all the kids with HLHS — be really strong and live a long life.
I hope that the doctors find the cure for HLHS. We're all part of the team.
Join us. hlhsblog.mayoclinic.org