{"id":4,"date":"2021-11-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cota1.wpengine.com\/cotaformirandasjourney\/our-story\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T13:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T13:16:23","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miranda’s journey started in the womb.  <\/span>On December 7, 2006, after a two hour ultrasound, we were told that Miranda’s heart was not symmetrical, one side was smaller.  <\/span>She was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). <\/span>HLHS is a complex and rare congenital heart defect where the left side of the heart is critically underdeveloped.  <\/span>This causes the right side of the heart to both pump blood to the lungs and to the rest of the body.  <\/span>While advances in medicine have improved the outlook for babies born with Hypoplastic syndrome, treatments still include surgeries and often a heart transplant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miranda was born on March 5, 2007. On March 8<\/span>th<\/sup><\/span>, she was taken in for her first open heart surgery (the Norwood Procedure).  <\/span>Due to complications during <\/span>anesthetizing,<\/span> the surgery had to be postponed a week while she recovered from Chemical pneumonia. <\/span><\/p>\n

When she was six months old, weighing about 12 lbs., Miranda had her second open heart surgery (the Bi-directional Glenn).  <\/span>Miranda had difficulties eating, so at 17 months old, she had a Mic-key button (feeding tube<\/span>) <\/span>placed.  <\/span>We continued to offer food and feed her formula overnight. <\/span><\/p>\n

When she was 4.5 years old, she had her third open heart surgery (the Fontan procedure).  <\/span>Miranda spent a month in the hospital after this procedure.  <\/span>Although this was stressful for us as her parents, Miranda has fond memories of someone bringing her a “fluffy” dress and painting her nails.<\/span><\/p>\n

A year after having the Fontan procedure, she had her fenestration closed (a hole left open in one of her arteries to help her pressures in her body).  <\/span>After the fenestration was closed, Miranda began having headaches and vomiting.  <\/span>She was diagnosed with PLE (Protein Losing Enteropathy), which causes proteins to seep out of her blood stream into her body.<\/span><\/p>\n

When she was six years old, they discovered that the opening created during the Norwood procedure had narrowed.  <\/span>This meant another open-heart surgery (an Atrial Septectomy).  <\/span>They placed a new fenestration to help relieve the pressures in her body.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even with these surgeries, the pressures in her body have caused her liver to become enlarged.  <\/span>They call this a Fontan Liver as it is often a side effect of that surgery. <\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout this medical journey we have worked hard to keep Miranda’s life as “normal” as possible.  <\/span>She has always been our “daredevil” child, often making our hearts skip a beat when she was running, jumping, and taking risks as if she had no medical issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today Miranda is a typical teenager.  <\/span>Most people who meet Miranda have no idea that she has a heart condition.  <\/span>She enjoys spending time with her friends and dancing on her High School’s competitive dance team, Rhythmic Mode.  <\/span>She is very active in church activities in the church she grew up in (First Christian Church Pendleton), Young Life, and other church youth groups with her friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miranda has been put onto the Heart Transplant list.  <\/span>She is at a 1b status, which is where she can wait at home for a heart.  <\/span>We have teamed up with the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) which 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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miranda’s journey started in the womb.  On December 7, 2006, after a two hour ultrasound, we were told that Miranda’s heart was not symmetrical, one side was smaller.  She was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). HLHS is a complex and rare congenital heart defect where the left side of the heart is critically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":192,"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\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cota.org\/cotaformirandasjourney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}