Eleanor

Hearts as Big as Texas Give Baby Eleanor a New Lease on Life 

Eleanor’s wish: To thrive and get into all the things

The first thing that Laura and Raul remember about their infant daughter Eleanor — after the open-heart surgery that saved her life — were her pink toes.  

“Throughout our daughter’s medical journey, we’ve cried a lot, I can’t even tell you how many times,” says Raul, Eleanor’s dad. “But when we saw her pink toes and noticed that her little fingernails were no longer purple, we cried happy tears.” 

Big surprises in a small package 

Long before Eleanor’s heart repair at five months, she was a big surprise to her parents. “Our daughter Shelby was 11 when I found out I was pregnant,” explains Laura. 

Eleanor also surprised Laura’s obstetrics team in the family’s hometown. “I had an ultrasound every two weeks because I’d had pre-term labor and my pregnancy was considered high risk,” she says. “In all those ultrasounds, no one caught our baby’s heart condition.” 

It wasn’t until Eleanor and Raul were settled into their maternity room with their new baby that they noticed Eleanor’s color would gradually turn from pink to purple and back to pink again. Within a few hours of her birth, their doctor did a newborn assessment and observed the same thing. 

After supplemental oxygen yielded no results, a neonatologist at the hospital’s small neonatal intensive care unit inserted a breathing tube hooked to a ventilator — a lifesaving measure that pumped air into Eleanor’s tiny lungs. Meanwhile, the Children’s Health cardiac ultrasound team traveled to the hospital to do an echocardiogram or “echo.”  

The scan revealed that Eleanor’s heart was positioned on the right side of her chest instead of the left — a condition called dextrocardia that, on its own, doesn’t usually cause problems, but tends to occur with other life-threatening conditions. In Eleanor’s case, her heart’s pulmonary valve, which controls the movement of blood to the lungs to receive oxygen, was too narrow for adequate blood flow. 

A baby with spunk 

Ten hours after being born, Eleanor was airlifted to the Children’s Health Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) in Dallas.  

“We were terrified that our baby girl wouldn’t survive, but the CVICU team was phenomenal,” remembers Laura. “The doctors worked so fast and the nurses were not only giving our newborn the care she needed, they were also taking care of me by making sure I was off my feet and getting the rest and nutrition I needed after just delivering a baby.”  

At four days old, Eleanor received a stent to open her pulmonary valve.  

Over the next five months, the family lived at the hospital and the Ronald McDonald House, waiting for the day when Eleanor’s heart, the size of a walnut, would be a bit bigger and stronger to handle the open-heart surgery that would provide a longer term repair. To everyone’s great joy and relief, the much anticipated operation was a success — a milestone that gave Eleanor a new lease on life as a pink baby. 

Today, at nine months, Eleanor is a smiley, talkative baby with an independent streak who is quickly catching up on her developmental skills.  
 
“She’s a strong baby,” laughs Laura. “She’s learning to eat by mouth so we can wean her off the feeding tube. That fire in her, that strong will to do her own thing will serve her well in a few years when she’ll need a catheterization procedure to replace two heart valves.” 

All for the love of children 

Laura looks back to the time when they first came to Children’s Health in January 2023.  

“We literally felt like we were lost when I learned that donors were giving time, money, toys, toiletries,” she says. “You have no idea. Even the smallest donated gifts made us feel like we weren’t alone. That someone was thinking of us. I want donors to know what a big difference they make to patients and families like ours.”       

She says she’ll never forget the CVICU team who took care of their daughter, referring to them as superheroes, angels and family. She talks about the nurses who were like aunties and the doctors who took the time to explain everything in a way that felt like a friend was talking with them. She’s also deeply grateful for the chaplain who was always there to guide them.           

“We wouldn’t have made it without the entire team and so many others at Children’s who were huge supporters and cheerleaders,” she says. ”They get paid to do a job, but they don’t get paid to love their patients — and they truly do love them. Their hearts are as big as Texas.” 

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At Children’s Health, the little red balloon floating next to our name is small but powerful – just like our patients. This red balloon unites the might of academic medicine with the breadth of specialty expertise to offer clinical care without a ceiling. When combined with the power of families and our donors, we are incredible together. 

The support of countless people over the years has proven that what we dream of today can become a reality tomorrow. You can help make the impossible possible for the next generation of kids at Children’s Health.

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