After She Was Born She Spent 694 Days In The Hospital And Now She’s Finally Home With Her Family
Detroit, Michigan. Valentina Garnetti was born on May 1st of 2019.
Her family lives just outside of Detroit, in Riverview, but she didn’t get to go home right away to be with her family after she was born.
Instead, Valentina spent a shocking 694 days in the hospital, and she was only recently able to go home to be with her loved ones.
Valentina is almost 2-years-old, and in her short life, she has already had 6 different surgeries with 4 of those being open-heart surgeries.
She also has sadly suffered complications like anaphylactic reactions, seizures, and even strokes.
Facebook; pictured above is Valentina
Valentina was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which is an extraordinarily rare and complicated heart condition that resulted in her not having a fully developed left part of her heart.
“The world kept spinning and life went on all while Valentina was stuck inside her little four walls of her hospital room,” Valentina’s mom Francesca explained in a Facebook post welcoming her home.
“Valentina has been through so much in her life: 6 surgeries – 4 of them open heart, 14 days on ECMO (life support), 8 heart caths, 28 chest tubes, 2 strokes, seizures, survival flight to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for 9 days for a thoracic duct embolization, 300+ Xrays, and thousands of other tests and procedures.”
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Facebook; pictured above Valentina celebrates coming home from the hospital after 694 days
“Some days I thought this day would never come. We’ve asked for so many prayers and gotten prayers from people all over the world.”
“You can’t tell me that miracles don’t happen, because Valentina is one,” she continued. “There were times when doctors and surgeons couldn’t explain why she got better when she was so sick.”
“I stopped questioning what Valentina did or why she did it, and just accepted that she ran the show. Everyone who knows her knows she doesn’t do anything by the book.”
“Valentina is the longest cardiac-related hospitalization in the history of Mott Children’s Hospital. She’s had complication after complication after complication but it all led us to this. I wouldn’t change a single thing about this journey.”
Now that Valentina is home with her mom and her sisters, her mom Francesca is raising money to help cover the extensive medical costs Valentina still faces.
On a GoFundMe page Francesca created, she says Valentina is currently on 30 medications that she has to take between 2 and 4 times every single day.
Facebook; above, Valentina wears an Easter dress after coming home
Unfortunately, their insurance doesn’t cover everything that Valentina needs, and Francesca is a single mom doing this all alone.
Francesca is also hoping to raise enough money to build a fence around her backyard so Valentina has a safe space to play in since she isn’t able to do other things children her age can like go to the park due to her heart condition.
You can donate to the GoFundMe here and you can also follow along with Valentina’s journey here.
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