We would like to introduce you to Heart Hero Ellie.  Ellie is the daughter of Sarah and Tony and they live in Mechanicsville, Maryland.  Like many of our Heroes, the first year of Ellie’s life was a little more of a challenge than her family had planned.

But again, like many of our Heroes, Ellie is a healthy little lady today.  Here is her story, submitted by her mom, Sarah.

Ellie Wailele Aina was born at home on January 30, 2012 by VBAC. We were told we had a healthy baby girl at our 20 week ultrasound. Ellie was “healthy” and pink after birth. She nursed fine, breathed fine, looked fine. Her feet were always cold, but since it was the middle of winter, I didn’t think anything of it.

At 4 days old, we took her to her newborn checkup with the pediatrician. He thought he heard a murmur and that she was looking blue. He did a pulse ox and her readings were in the 70’s. He sent us to the ER to have her checked out with a newborn-sized pulse ox. We had no clue anything was wrong and knew nothing about heart defects.

Ellie was life-flighted to Children’s National Medical Center where they diagnosed her with Transposition of the Great Arteries. It was terrifying to find out and scary to think about how close we were to losing her.

Heart Hero EllieEllie had a heart catheterization immediately to open a hole in her heart so her blood would mix. Then on February 9 (her due date), when she was 10 days old, she had her open heart surgery (arterial switch).

Everything went well and after 15 (long and scary) days in the hospital we were discharged.

She has been doing very well ever since. We celebrated her “heartiversary” this past February and she just got cleared for a year from her cardiologist.

We are so happy and so blessed to have Ellie as part of our family. She is our little warrior.