THE CONGENITAL HEART DEFECT OF JANNA FENNELL

                             By, Stephon Frimpong

On March 5, 1989 Janna Fennell was born. Yet, something was wrong with her when she was a baby, she would turn purple because she was not getting enough oxygen.

The doctors found out that Janna had a condition called a congenital heart defect. She was born with three heart chambers instead of four.

 

What is a congenital heart defect? Well, it is a problem with the structure of the heart.

It’s present at birth, congenital heart defects are the most common type of major birth defects. Congenital heart defects can disrupt the normal flow of blood through the heart.

 

Some causes of the defect can be from genetic or environment things, but is usually a combination of both.

“I don’t know why I was born with it, but I needed surgery right away when I was a baby”, she says.

Why, why did this happen to a person as kind as her, to be born with a heart defect like that?

She does not know if she will need future surgeries to help her conditions.

“I don’t know if I will need surgery but I might because I just had surgery a couple of months ago”, she says.

 

Some types of treatments that can help it can be taking medicine, surgery, and other medical procedures and a heart transplant.

Janna has to take 6 different types of medications.

“They all help my heart work better and faster”, she says.

 

She cannot play sports. If she does, her heart will go out of sync and will not work.

If she didn’t get surgery, when she was born she would have died!

I admire her strong will to keep going and not let it affect who she is as a person today.

Now, Janna is 23 yrs old. She is healthy and happy; she just recently graduated from Dartmouth College.

She is living a good life

“I’m glad that I am healthy and I’m looking towards the future”, she says.