Eight-year-old Perm girl lives with half a heart
She enjoys drawing, attends circus shows, and studies at home with family support.
In Perm, a girl lives who was born with an unusual condition — all her organs are mirror-imaged and she has only half a heart. In the maternity hospital, doctors told the girl’s parents that such children do not survive, yet Ilaria is already eight.
The girl was born strong and healthy, but within a couple of hours doctors detected critically low oxygen saturation (a measure of blood oxygenation — Editor’s note) of 65%. A saturation level below 90% indicates respiratory failure requiring urgent medical care. At first, doctors thought the pulse oximeter was broken, but it turned out Ilaria had a very complex heart defect. Doctors also saw that all her organs were mirrored.
«You could say she lives with half a heart: she has one ventricle, one atrium… We were told that such children die in infancy», the girl’s mother Polina told specialists at Dedmorozim (Dedmorozim Foundation).
The grim predictions did not come true: now Ilaria plays, studies at home, loves drawing, picking flowers and berries, goes to the circus, and attends events held by Dedmorozim, which helps the family. The girl’s life is full, even though she requires special care — specialists from Dedmorozim support Ilaria.
«Doctors who visit us record saturation of 58–65%, and Ilaria sits, draws, and smiles. The medics say things are very bad, but they cannot understand how such behavior is even possible. It is a true miracle that has been with us for more than eight years», Polina shares.
Earlier we reported that a nine-year-old girl from Perm named Ksyusha has an unknown illness — the girl’s arms and legs are shortening and her speech is disappearing, and doctors have been unable to make a diagnosis for four years.
