{"id":10387,"date":"2024-06-17T16:30:56","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T06:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=10387"},"modified":"2024-06-27T09:00:33","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T23:00:33","slug":"aarna-the-heart-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/aarna-the-heart-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Aarna the heart hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

602.<\/span>That\u2019s how many days two-year-old Aarna spent in Koala, The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital\u2019s cardiac ward.<\/span><\/p>\n

That means, the toddler has spent most of her life in hospital, until now.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In May 2022, at around eight-weeks-old, Aarna fell ill and was rushed to her local emergency <\/span>department in Sydney. She had cardiomyopathy.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn simple words, her left side of her heart was not working properly,\u201d Aarna\u2019s parents, Neha and Gourav explained.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At six months, Aarna was transferred to the RCH, where she underwent heart surgery, but unfortunately it didn\u2019t help and eventually Aarna\u2019s family were told she would need a new heart.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the queen of Koala ward and knows all the nurses by name in Koala,\u201d Neha said.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The strong and determined two-year-old certainly made a name for herself.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe knows exactly what she wants and she is very loud and clear!\u201d her parents said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout her time in Koala, Aarna and her family marked many milestones, forging close bonds with the staff who looked after them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very grateful for exceptional support medically and emotionally throughout our journey,\u201d her parents recalled.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey celebrated\u202four Hindu festivals with us like Diwali and Holi and we never felt that we are not celebrating it with our friends and family. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“They ensured\u202fwe didn’t\u202ffeel homesick, especially during those times.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“The RCH has a great team of doctors, nurses and allied staff. It is only because of them it would have been possible to survive such a long time in the hospital.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After undergoing a heart transplant and lengthy recovery Aarna\u2019s family were told, she was ready to leave the RCH.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very happy as we waited very long for this day and at the same time very emotional as we were very close to all the nurses and carers,\u201d her parents said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKoala is like our family. <\/span>We had so many celebrations together and also faced so many challenges together.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe all got so emotional when we saw so many people come to say goodbye.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the day of her discharge, the ward was packed with staff and friends, as Aarna was wheeled out of Koala for the last time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like the entire hospital was there to say goodbye to her,\u201d Neha and Gourav said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost\u202feveryone including\u202fus was crying as everyone including doctors, all the Koala Nurses, VAD team, Aarna’s care team, support staff were waiting for that day.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful to RCH for taking such good care of Aarna and especially that day is engraved in our hearts forever and we will never forget that.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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With thanks to Aarna\u2019s family for sharing their story.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

602.That\u2019s how many days two-year-old Aarna spent in Koala, The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital\u2019s cardiac ward. That means, the toddler has spent most of her life in hospital, until now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6846,"featured_media":10400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[26958],"class_list":["post-10387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news","tag-patient-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6846"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10387"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10398,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10387\/revisions\/10398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}