>> Tyler was born with a congenital heart defect.
We had anticipated at some point in his life that he may need a heart transplant but certainly
not this early.
He went into rapid heart failure this spring.
>> He was very sick in our ICU and really facing certain death.
Historically we would have had no options to be able to effectively treat his heart
failure but our surgeons were able to plant a ventricular assist device in him and support
his circulation while waiting for a transplant.
>> The physicians at CHOP took something that, first of all, was meant for adults and put
it in a 27-pound child.
And then instead of putting it in his ventricle, they put it in his atrium on the right side
of his body instead of the left side.
So everything they did was essentially not what it was meant for and it works beautifully.
>> It's allowed him to survive and thrive and hopefully he will soon undergo a heart transplantation.
>> I was born with a congenital heart defect known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
>> Julia developed a problem where the blood that goes through the lungs doesn't pick up oxygen.
>> I started to feel more tired and worn out and they actually said that I'd probably have
to get a heart transplant.
>> We wanted to try to see if we could figure out a way to somehow reroute the blood inside
her body without surgery.
>> Jack Rome sat and sort of puzzled through Julia.
>> We drew her anatomy, we did all this flow mapping and stuff and we finally came up with
a way that we could rechannel the blood flow.
>> He was taking bits and pieces of other stents and such that we use for other indications
and putting them together in a completely unique way.
>> You know, a couple of months, her oxygen level was a little better, and a few months later
it was a little better and pretty soon, high enough so that it's virtually indistinguishable
from normal and she got better.
>> And I didn't have to get a heart transplant so it was pretty incredible.
>> She really is the embodiment of the successes that we've had in the past, the problems that
we run into and with creative thinking, how we can solve these problems.
>> If you really wanna make an advance on a particular area, you need to have a continued
stream of funding that allows you to work at it and especially if you wanna do really
new things.
>> We have, in recent years, made incredible important breakthroughs that nobody else has
had in some of the most important issues affecting our patients.
We really need the support of philanthropy to make that possible.
>> People may not realize just how important their donation is and just how significant
that is for us.
>> We can really point to patient by patient and innovation by innovation; whether money's
being spent and how it's being used.
>> Those innovations, those creative leaps, the ability for the doctors here to see a
problem and come at it a different way opens the door for a whole new avenue of explorations.
>> Solutions for patients in heart failure from all sizes.
>> Therapies that would eliminate the need for heart caths or transplantations in the
future.
>> Prototype devices and rapidly come to a position where they could actually be made
and put into people.
>> Placental studies, is there a point where we can intervene and maybe prohibit that heart
disease from even happening in the first place.
>> How addressing the lymphatic system directly can really improve the life of our patients.
>> It's all theoretical until you're faced with a kid or a young adult or an adolescent
who has this acute problem and suddenly, you know, here is this child who's going to die
and how am I going to help them; what can I do today, not tomorrow, not next week, not
next month, but today cause if I can't think of something, it's it for them.
>> Tyler's a perfect example of what giving an endowment to CHOP could be like, taking a child
who's critically ill and allowing him to go home and be with his sisters and grow and
learn and play.
>> I can't think of anything more important than taking a child who has a fatal heart
disease and getting them through to live to be a grandparent.
>> What we've been able to do is give those patients hope, give those families hope and
give those families the assurance that we're going to continue to do everything we can
for them.
>> Helping these doctors pave the way for more kids and more families, there could be
nothing more important in my opinion.
>> From the bottom of all the hearts we touch, from the bottom off all the hearts we work
on, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
>> Thank you.