Hello world!
We at Erin’s Fund have decided to start a blog to keep you all updated on my life and everything that the foundation is doing. Some of the posts are going to be about more personal topics about living with a congenital heart defect and others will be more general or research based!
For those of you who are new to the foundation, I’m going to start with a quick overview of who I am. To start, we’ve got the basics: my name is Erin, I am currently a junior at The George Washington University studying Marketing and Health Sciences. I am actively involved in a number of organizations, including the GW Equestrian Team, and am on the Dean’s List. When I graduate, I hope to work in the administration of a children’s hospital. Oh, and I was born with a congenital heart defect.
Shorty after being born, the doctors whisked me away from my mother. Something was clearly wrong with my heart. That night I was emergency transported to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) where I was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia. Four days later, I was stable enough for surgery and underwent my first open heart surgery to correct the structural issues with my heart. Seven and a half months later comes open heart surgery number two.
Fast forward twenty years, I have my first complication (that I remember) of my heart: an episode of ventricular tachycardia. The arrhythmia resulted in a catheter ablation and the implantation of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD).
Because of my family’s incredible gratitude to CHOP and the people that work there, in 1996 my family created Erin’s Fund. The endowed fund was established to help support research in congenital heart defects. Today, one of the many facets of research that Erin’s Fund supports is for valve replacement surgeries and technologies.
Check out how you can help support Erin’s Fund and ensure that other kids like me have bright futures: https://fromerinsheart.org/