Story
Name
Quinnlie Schock
Injury/Illness
Heart Defect
Quinnlie was born on 10/7/2024. She was diagnosed with Coarctation of the Aorta at 1 day old. We were completely blind sided. We knew she could potentially have a few VSD's and ASD's, as they spotted some on ultrasound at 28 weeks gestation, but we were completely unaware of anything related to her aorta. She was life flighted to Mayo clinic in Rochester and had emergency surgery. The initial procedure went well, however a few days later they noticed she was still sending too much blood back to her lungs, so she then underwent another procedure to place Pulmonary Flow Restrictors to control the flow of blood to her lungs. The following day her doctors realized the first repair was not enough, and her heart needed another repair of the coarctation as well as putting a band around her pulmonary artery. She underwent a second open heart procedure, just a week after the first one. That repair was successful, but it created a domino affect of other complications. She was diagnosed with a Chylothorax leak shortly after the surgery, which created additional fluid build up on her heart. Because of this, she can no longer eat regular breastmilk or formula. She then was found to have her left vocal cord paralyzed from the surgery. She is unable to eat through a bottle due to aspiration because her vocal cords do not connect enough to protect her airway, so she had a G tube placed. After a few days the g tube started to leak, and the surgery team decided it was because they cut the whole too big for the tube.
It has been an absolute whirlwind for our family. She is still facing a very long road ahead, as she has several VSD's as well as ASD's they are waiting to repair until she is bigger and stronger. Throughout this whole endeavor she has been dealing with weaning off different medications, opioids, steroids, and sedation. She is quite the fighter, and will continue to fight.