Rare Procedure Strikes Toddler's Name Off Of Transplant List

A child's life should be nothing but fun. No child should ever have to feel pain and suffer from something that can potentially cause a huge impact on their childhood. However, there is always something good that can come out of a situation no matter how tragic it may sound. And it's such an amazing feeling to know that someone so young can do something not even a grown up can do.

Zoe Jones, a three-year-old girl from Nashville, TN, did what everybody believes to be a miracle. Her name was stricken off of the transplant list without going under the knife, which doctors' say is extremely rare.

According to naturalsociety.com, Zoe was born with a very rare condition known as VACTERL syndrome. VACTERL is an acronym given to the syndrome's characteristics which was discovered to happen all together according to Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

•  Vstands for vertebrae, the bones of the spinal column.
•  Astands for imperforate anus or anal atresia, which refers to an anus that does not open to the outside of the body.
•  Cis added to the acronym to represent cardiac abnormalities.
•  TEstands for tracheoesophageal fistula, which is a persistent connection between the trachea (the windpipe) and the esophagus (the feeding tube).
•  Rstands for renal or kidney anomalies.
•  Llimb anomalies (radial agenesis).

At a tender age of three, Zoe had already undergone 13 surgeries and has suffered seven cardiac arrests and five strokes. She had her first life-saving surgery when she was only three months old. Her old hospital in Nashville told Zoe's parents there was nothing they could do to save her so they recommended that she be transferred to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, OH.

When Zoe was first checked by the doctors, they thought she badly needed a rare procedure (double heart and lung transplant) to improve her current situation. However, according to parenting.com, the doctors were surprise to discover that they could actually do something that could save Zoe from having the transplant. All they needed was a plug to relieve blood pressure on the arteries of her lungs, after that they needed to operate and reroute the blood flow to her heart.

"Finding something like this is extraordinarily rare, and being able to help her in the way that we did really, I think, altered her life course," Dr. Darren Berman, co-director of Cardiac Catheterization and Interventional Therapy, says in the video.

Video Credit: youtube.com/nationwidechildrens