Four-Year-Old Dasha Has A Heart Defect.
                     Heart Surgery Can Save Her Life.

 

Little Dasha is a very cute and active four-year-old girl. You'd never know she has a life threatening heart defect. Little Dasha has a PDA (patent ductus arteriosus), a condition in which a blood vessel fails to close normally after birth. As a result, she has abnormal blood flow between the aorta and pulmonary artery, two major blood vessels that surround the heart. If the PDA is not closed, Dasha risks heart failure, bleeding in the lungs, problems with lung development, or endocarditis (an infection of the inner lining of the heart).

Russian Gift of Life, USA raised the funds needed for Dasha's heart surgery and travel expenses from Russia. Dasha is from the Smolensk Region.

Through a minimally invasive catheter-based procedure, Sean Levchuck, M.D., Chairman of Pediatric Cardiology at Saint Francis Hospital will be able to correct the little girl's condition so she can live a normal life like other children her age. Her life saving heart surgery was performed on January 18, 2012.

To see a five minute documentary of how the procedure that saved four-year-old Dasha works and to learn more about Russian Gift of Life, please click here.