Advertisement They would be in the midst of a race and suddenly 6-year-old Kaitlyn would flop on the couch, pale and winded, recalled her mother, Diane Genelin.
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A routine physical early in 2007 would reveal that what Diane and Tony Genelin had thought was a 2- to 3-millimeter hole in Kaitlyn’s heart had become an 11-millimeter hole with severe leakage in one of the valves.
Kaitlyn needed open heart surgery — right away — to repair the damage.
She went in for the surgery on April 5, 2007, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minn. The hole was patched and the valve repaired.
Diane said Kaitlyn’s recovery was going smoothly and it looked as though she would be discharged soon when doctors came to deliver the bad news.
“Kaitlyn has to have surgery again first thing in the morning,” Diane wrote April 10 in her online journal. “It seems as though the patch is being torn off by a new leak through the aortic valve.”
There was a lot of repair work to do during Kaitlyn’s second surgery, and doctors told the Genelins that their daughter’s aortic valve was torn and needed to be stitched.
Kaitlyn’s recovery the second time was longer and more difficult and she spent several days in intensive care before she was able to come home, Diane said.
A test on July 3 showed Kaitlyn still has a 3-millimeter hole and mild aortic valve leakage.
But her doctor said Kaitlyn “looks great and they’ll take what her heart looks like now with a 3-millimeter hole and mild leakage compared to an 11-milimeter hole and severe leakage,” Diane wrote.
Kaitlyn’s next appointment is in April.
In the meantime, Kaitlyn, now 7, has been busy being a kid — riding her bicycle, chasing her siblings and jumping rope.
“Before I could still run, but I wasn’t very fast,” she said. “But after two surgeries, I’m one of the fastest in my class.”
She recently was named Jump Rope for Heart Ambassador at Cathedral School, where she is in the first grade.
“My sister taught me how” to jump rope, Kaitlyn said, demonstrating hot peppers. “I can do crosses and go backwards, too.”
Not bad for a kid who had two heart surgeries last spring.
Autumn Grooms can be reached at (608) 791-8424 or agrooms@lacrossetribune.com.
