Zara the Heart Warrior

We are walking in this years Two Feet & a Heartbeat walk in honour of all those children living with congenital or acquired childhood heart disease and the young lives lost too early to this disease. Please support our walk and HeartKids so they can support those going through this journey.

Zara was born with a major heart defect where most of the wall between the two ventricles of her heart is missing. Before her birth, cardiologists said that her heart also had poor function and they weren’t expecting her to make it through pregnancy.
By some miracle when she was born her heart function improved. Because of this she was determined stable enough to undergo 3 stages of palliation open heart surgeries to save her life. Zara has had a PA band surgery at 7 weeks old and a Glenn surgery at 11 months old. She will have the 3rd stage, called the Fontan procedure, before the age of 5.

While she’s doing extremely well since her last operation, CHD is a lifelong battle. Surgery cannot fix her heart defect and will only improve her quality of life.

HeartKids has been a great support to us at the toughest times. Whether it be a text or phone call to check in to see how we are coping, arranging morning teas for us to meet other parents of heart kids or providing frozen meals to family members for those long hospital stays. HeartKids is a very worthwhile charity that we will continue to support.