{"id":4,"date":"2023-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cota1.wpengine.com\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/our-story\/"},"modified":"2023-08-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T00:00:00","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin’s heart journey began the day he was born, 9\/6\/05. He was diagnosed shortly after birth with multiple congenital heart defects including Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Double Outlet Right Ventricle, and a Ventricular Septal Defect. He underwent a series of 3 open heart surgeries for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome – the Norwood Procedure on 9\/13\/05, the Glenn Procedure on 12\/17\/05 and the Fontan Procedure on 7\/8\/08. During a routine heart cath a few days before the Glenn Procedure, Justin suffered his first code (cardiac arrest) at the age of 3 months. At age 5, he was diagnosed with Sick Sinus Syndrome and had his first pacemaker placed on 11\/16\/10. On 10\/22\/19, Justin had surgery to replace his pacemaker and leads. During the surgery, he suffered his second code (a V-fib cardiac arrest) and his heart did not pump for 25 minutes. He was sent to the cardiac ICU on a ventilator and ECMO with his chest still open and on an external pacemaker. His new pacemaker was placed successfully on 10\/24\/19. During the week of 5\/22\/23 – 5\/26\/23, Justin went through heart transplant evaluation at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and was officially listed as a heart transplant candidate on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) waiting list on 6\/29\/23.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justin’s heart journey began the day he was born, 9\/6\/05. He was diagnosed shortly after birth with multiple congenital heart defects including Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Double Outlet Right Ventricle, and a Ventricular Septal Defect. He underwent a series of 3 open heart surgeries for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome – the Norwood Procedure on 9\/13\/05, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaforjustinsheartjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}