- We normally think of watching TV as a guilty pleasure, but this story may change your mind about Grey’s Anatomy for some!
- Dr. Doaa Saleh is a “Grey’s Anatomy” superfan, but she never thought her favorite show would end up leaving an indelible mark on her family’s lives.
- However, when Doaa was 20 weeks pregnant with her second daughter, an ultrasound showed the baby had a rare and life-threatening heart defect.
Normally we think of seeing the television like a guilty pleasure, but this story may change some minds!
Dr. Doaa Saleh is a super fan of “Grey’s Anatomy”, but he never thought his favorite show would end up leaving an indelible mark on his family’s life. However, when Doaa was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child, an ultrasound showed the baby had a rare and life-threatening heart defect.
Doaa and her husband Ali were devastated to learn that their baby, Nadine, might not survive the pregnancy. Even worse: doctors in Dubai, where they lived at the time, said there was nothing they could do to help. Even if Nadine survived the birth, doctors said she would need three heart surgeries and live with “half a heart.” They predicted that she would be developmentally behind her and that she might not live past the age of 30.
“I don’t remember crying like this in my life and I had lived through wars,” Doaa wrote on Instagram. “I needed to catch my breath, my eyes closed, everything is black. Out of nowhere this scene jumped into my mind, the vision of pink lights in the womb, the music of the scene. If you saw it before, you will remember how special it was. Why did I remember it at that time? I still have no idea!”
Doaa immediately began researching surgeries for babies still in the womb. Sure enough, the “Grey” episode was right: after all, there are surgeons who can correct heart defects like Nadine’s!
They began looking for doctors who could help
Doaa and Ali immediately began looking for doctors who could help Nadine. Doaa says they didn’t sleep for the next 48 hours as they communicated with hospitals around the world. Finally, a piece of research led them to Dr. James
Strainic, who works as a pediatric cardiologist and surgeon at Congenital Heart Collaborative at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. When he said that he could help Nadine, Dr. Strainic became his “real life McDreamy.”
“That moment changed everything!” Doa remembered. “7,000 miles away, this amazing human being knew how critical this moment was to saving my baby and how scared she was.”
The Saleh family packed their eldest daughter and flew 22 hours from Dubai to Cleveland, pinning all their hopes on a man they had never met, in a city they had never heard of, on the other side of the world.
“The fact that they put so much trust in us is humbling,” said Dr. Strainic.
In Cleveland, Dr. Strainic was able to successfully perform the pulmonary valvuloplasty surgery fetal in Nadine in the womb. In this rare procedure, doctors use ultrasound to guide a tiny needle through the mother’s abdomen and into the fetal heart to open a stuck valve.
“And the way we do it is with a really small balloon,” explained Dr. Strainic. “It is only 3-4mm in size. We inflate the balloon and kind of open the door and prevent something called hypoplastic right ventricle or half-heart syndrome.”
¡The procedure took only 20 minutes and changed their lives forever! While about 10% of babies die in the womb even after surgery, Nadine pulled through. She was born healthy and now she is a robust 3-year-old who rules the chicken coop!
Nadine finally met Dr. Stainic a few months after her birth. Both the doctor and Doaa are sharing Nadine’s story to raise awareness of this rare procedure. She wants to prevent any mother from ever hearing “we have no options” for the heart disorder half.
Doaa is also incredibly grateful that “Grey’s Anatomy” featured this surgery.
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