Hi everyone my name is Liam I am 26 years old I was born with a rare heart defect called a double aortic arch and vascular ring. My heart had an extra pipe being my aorta that wrapped internally around my wind and food pipe slowly like a snake crushing it and putting a strain on my heart. sounds cool in theory but it’s not trust me!

It was missed at birth yet I always had trouble breathing eating and a heart mummer all warning signs of this defect.

In 2017 I become very ill blackouts my heart feel like it was ready to pop and blood pressure went batty like 200 red light warning on the ER heart monitor.

After two years of wasted time with a bad heart doctor who refused to listen to me and called me nuts— call it luck but I call it an angel in the X-ray room my first ever visit to an asthma doctor who also had ties to a top cardiologist/surgeon, I might add. Hello, heart defect!

2019 I was off to fix my broken heart. I felt like a racehorse ready to kick the gates down to victory!

It was really scary even though I am a tough guy I had to be on the kid’s ward for open-heart surgery because the heart defect is so rare and the surgeon mostly dealt with babies and kids as children nowadays unlike in the 90’s when I was born doctors have a better chance of finding and fixing this heart defect at birth unlike me thanks to medical advances.

My heart is all better though I have long-term and terminal other rare genetic defects I am still a tiny but mighty person!

I would tell people to listen to your body because doctors sadly are too quick to judge and fueled by money along with one size fits all ideas even in today healthcare rather than to look, seek and find odd and rare things medical wise.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight it’s the fight in the dog!”

The photo is about three weeks after heart surgery the concert with Jakob Dylan who was so sweet and kind and gave me a birthday hug! My arm is in a sling because they went through my left side rib cage to enter my heart so my arm was really painful to move too far or bump! Ouch!

Baby shark do! The staff and I sang because the wound looked like a shark bite Jaws just when you thought it was safe to go to the doctors! Ha!! Laughter is the best medicine and healer!

What do we do?
Just Keep Swimming!

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