We're truly grateful for your visit to Team Brave Like Briar's page!

Every 15 minutes in the United States, a baby is born with a congenital heart defect, making CHDs the most common birth defect in our country.

As a sweet and spunky, almost 18 month old little girl, you would never know that Briar has not one, but TWO congenital heart defects. 

Here's her ever growing story: 

   At 3 days old, our sweet Briar Bear was diagnosed with mild Pulmonary Valve Stenosis, which has gradually changed to moderate Pulmonary Valve Stenosis, but thankfully has stayed consistent the past few echoes. 
Since her echo this past November, she has also been diagnosed with a second CHD, a large Atrial Septal Defect. This additional diagnosis came as a complete surprise for us and her Cardiology team and they are continuing to keep a very close eye on her. Her most recent echo was May2nd of this year, which showed that her 12mm Atrial Septal Defect has not shrunk, like we were hoping, and this, coupled with her, thankfully, unchanged Pulmonary Valve Stenosis, has started to lead to Briar having right-sided heart dilation. Despite all of this, Briar continues to he the happiest baby, surpassing milestones and surprising everyone with her great weight gain! 

    Currently, the plan in place for her is a scheduled sedated ECHO in November to get clear pictures of everything so the wonderful Heart Center team at Nationwide Children's Hospital can have a full case conference on her to see what the plan will be.

      While we aren't sure what the future will hold for us as they continue to monitor her as she grows, (whether it be a trip to the cath lab, open heart surgery, or it getting better on its own), we are so grateful that she has such an amazing Cardiology team at the Heart Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

#CHDAwarenessWeek #1in100 #bravelikebriar #chdawareness #chdwarrior

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