Photo: Little Valentina Allen’s big sister, Victoria, and dad, Ryan, visit the brave Howard Beach tot in The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Courtesy of the Allen Family.
A stricken Howard Beach toddler is now a candidate for a heart transplant following complications from her April 7 open-heart surgery to replace a leaky valve, the girl’s mother told The Forum this week.
Valentina Allen, 2, was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital defect marked by a severely underdeveloped left ventricle. Valentina, who lives with mom Danielle, dad Ryan, and older sister Victoria, underwent her first open-heart surgery when she was just three days old.
The four-hour procedure to replace the compromised valve was to take place on April 1 at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where Valentina has been treated since she arrived on Feb. 15, 2013. However, the operation had to be postponed until April 7 because Valentina was suffering from a cold.
All signs pointed to a successful surgery. But on Sunday night, April 12, Valentina went into cardiac arrest, something her mom knew might occur right after the procedure, not five days post-op.
“Her ventricle got used to not pumping so much blood, because the valve was so leaky, that when the new valve went in, it was just too much,” Danielle said. “Her doctor told me to look at it as if I was walking and then all of a sudden a 60-pound backpack was thrown on my back. I would slow down until I got my momentum back.”
Doctors intubated Valentina before she coded—cardiopulmonary arrest requiring immediate resuscitative efforts—twice. They then put her on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation life support “to let her heart really heal,” Danielle said.
On Monday, Valentina was taken off ECMO life support, and doctors noted that the ventricle was strong enough to wait for a new heart. She will remain in Philadelphia as long as she is on the transplant list.
“Thank God she is here because anywhere else there would be an extremely high chance she would’ve died,” Danielle said. “Not many hospitals have an ECMO machine, and without it she wouldn’t have made it, so I thank God for that.”
By Michael V. Cusenza michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
