Lennon - Heart of a champion!

Hello – Teddy and Sarah are our best friends and they need our help! They found out at their 21 week ultrasound the heart-stopping news every parents fears – There were going to be some major medical hurdles for their new baby.

Sarah was induced on February 1st and delivered a beautiful baby girl, Lennon Rose, at 8lbs 4oz. Sarah was given a very short window of skin to skin with Lennon before she had to be taken to the NICU. Lennon was dependent on a medicine to keep her (ductus arteriosus) artery that is used while baby is inside of mom intact, until she was healthy enough to go into surgery. This artery typically begins closing as soon as a baby is born. Her diagnosis was a large VSD (ventricular septal defect) – a hole in the wall that separates the heart’s lower chambers - an interrupted aortic arch, hypoplastic aortic valve and ascending aorta, along with a multicystic dysplastic left kidney. Echocardiograms and ultrasounds confirmed all of this after her birth.

On Tuesday, February 6, Lenni went into open heart surgery. Surgery took a little over 6 hours where she was then brought to the Pediatric Cardiac ICU.

On Thursday, February 8, Lenni had her breast bone closed back up as her swelling had finally gone down enough to allow for the repair to be completed.

This strong little girl’s next hurdle is a heart block that occurred after the surgery where the two chambers of the heart do not beat in sync and could lead to her needing a pacemaker.

This family has a long journey ahead, and Lennon will always be seen by a cardiologist for monitoring - The conduit that was put in for her new pulmonary is not a lifelong fix and will need to be upsized as she grows and her heart continues to grow.

This family would do anything to help someone when they need it, and we want to give them as much support as they need and for as long as they need it.

Please help us ease the burden on them, so they can focus on Lennon’s healing and their family.