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Henley Smrt didn’t arrive in this world easily. She was born with a hole in her diaphragm. Her intestines were in her chest cavity. And she had only a 20 percent chance of survival.
As soon as she was born, Henley needed to be put on a heart and lung bypass machine called an ECMO.
Cincinnati Children’s staff walked Henley's mom, Alyssa, through the process of a complicated diagnosis and treatment.
Henley needed a big machine attached to her that acted as her heart and lungs and bought her time to recover.
A bout with pulmonary hypertension required Henley to go back on the ECMO machine a second time. Alyssa counted on Henley’s care team to see them through.
Today, Henley is a toddler who loves books and is starting to talk. Physically, she’s catching up. Her family’s next goal is to have her feeding tube removed.
Now that family is at the end of the hardest part of Henley’s medical journey, her caregivers are happy to call her a success story.