Meet our Zipper Buddies

February 2025

Please meet one of our two February Zipper Buddies-Brody! Brody will be dropping the puck at our Charity Hockey game read below to learn his story: Almost 14 years ago

“Brody was born with 2 different heart defects. A large Atrial Septal Defect, and an Ectopic Atrial Tachycardia. Brody was in respiratory distress and congestive heart failure shortly after birth. One nurse heard a murmur and his heart journey began. Brody was transferred to a higher level NICU, and thankfully, in the hands of some amazing doctors/specialists. They found his Tachycardia, and incidentally the ASD. With medication, he was stabilized and sent home after 4 weeks. At age 2, at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in NYC, he had his open heart surgery to close the repair the Atrial defect and stop the right side from swelling. His surgeon was Dr. Emile Bacha. Brody’s recovery went very well, and all his checkups since have been good! Brody’s family feels very fortunate for his outcome and blessed to have had the amazing doctors in our lives. Brody will be 14 this year and along with his brothers has started an initiative to bring awareness and screenings for teen athletes to our community for undetected heart defects. Brody is a AAA goalie with the PAL junior Islanders. “

January 2025

Please welcome January’s Zipper Buddy, Ellis! Here is Ellis’s story via his mom @kerrylynn

“Our journey as a heart family began at our 20 week anatomy scan and my OB told me it looked like Ellis had a very large VSD and also transposition of the great arteries. He was born January 28, 2022 in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) special delivery unit and was immediately taken to the cardiac ICU to get him on meds to keep his PDA valve open while he awaited his first surgery. At three days old, he had his first cardiac catheterization surgery to place a stent in his PDA valve so he could come home until his next surgery at 6 months old. At 6 months Ellis had his first open heart surgery called the Glenn procedure. Because of his unique combination of congenital heart defects, he is technically considered a single ventricle patient and will undergo a second open heart surgery in a few months to complete the Fontan Procedure. Despite all this, Ellis is turning 3 years old this month, has surpassed every milestone, and is thriving. We cannot say enough about how amazing CHOP and the CHD community as whole is.”

We are so proud of Ellis! Thank you for sharing his story and thank you for being an active member of the CHD community.

December 2024

Please say a jolly hello to our December Zipper Buddy, Landon! Here is Landon’s story via his mother @nellboo3x :

June 2023, me and my husband’s life changed in ways we couldn’t imagine. Our son was born, and unbeknownst to us, had an undetected CHD that wasn’t discovered until 10 days after he was born along with 2 other heart issues. In his 1st month of life he was life flighted twice, in the NICU, CICU, and had open heart surgery. Fast forward to November 2023, we found out his blood flow was still not functioning properly in his heart. He had another heart surgery (closed). Come December 2023, we found out that he now had an aneurysm in his heart and would need another open heart surgery. Then, March 2024, he had his 2nd open heart (3rd heart surgery) to fix these issues. Since then, he’s been thriving and catching up to get where he needs to be. He still has swallowing issues and has delayed gross motor skills, but slowly each day we are getting there! He’s truly our miracle baby and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We are advocates for those who have to go through similar situations to us and want to keep spreading awareness of babies born with CHD and other complex medical conditions.

We thank you for sharing Landon’s story with us and for spreading awareness ❤️

November 2024

Please welcome November’s, and our very first, Zipper Buddy, Ava!

Introducing our very first Zipper Buddy, Miss Ava! Ava, her mother, and family are near and dear to us, as Hannah and Ava's mom are childhood friends that reconnected more closely after finding out they both had CHD babies born within months of each other. That tongue-out smile melts us every time!
Welcome to club Z.B. Ava!

Before Ava was born, we were unaware of her Down syndrome and heart defect diagnosis. We soon learned that roughly 65% of babies born with Down syndrome are also born with a CHD. Ava was born with Atrioventricular Septal Defect, which is the most common heart defect among Down syndrome babies. We were told that she would need a repair at around 6 months of age, but she wound up growing and gaining weight so well they deemed her ready for her repair at 3 months. Looking back on those days is tough, and preparing to have your baby go through open heart surgery takes a strength like no other, but we are so grateful to be on the other side of it and happy to say Ava’s heart defect is completely healed from her surgery. Post-op we were in the hospital for 5 days before we were able to go home. It is truly amazing how quickly little babies are able to heal and overcome such large hurdles in our eyes, and to this day, almost a year later, Ava is thriving and doing better than we could ever have imagined. She sees her cardiologist once a year, no longer has a murmur, and is hitting milestones we never imagined possible. We are so thankful for the CHD community we have been introduced to, and extremely grateful for her amazing medical team at Boston Children’s Hospital.