CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV/Gray News) – A 3-year-old with a rare condition is recovering after she received a life-saving surgery.
Shortly after Aria Horne was born, her mother Heather Horne said she saw something different about her.
“We noticed that right under her, this area (her neck), it was bulging in and out whenever she cried,” Horne said.
As a mother of four, Horne said she knew this wasn’t normal.
“They were calling it a neck mass, or a lump and didn’t know what it was. So we went to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, multiple different doctors,” Horne said
While doing her own research, Horne said she came across something called a sternal cleft. Aria’s doctors later agreed with the diagnosis.
“He said, ‘Let me go research it’ and when he … got back to me he said, ‘I think that’s what it is. I think you’re right,‘” Horne said.
According to the National Library of Medicine, a sternal cleft is when the sternum does not fully combine during pregnancy.
The rare chest wall malformation occurs in one out of every 100,000 births and represents less than 1% of all chest wall deformities.
Horne said doctors recommended surgery for Aria, but they would have to wait until she was at least 3 years old.
“That way it’s more spaced out because the aorta and the vessels over your heart and stuff is in that area. It’s what our sternum bone protects,” Horne said.
In November, Aria finally went in for surgery, earning the new nickname “Iron Girl.”
The surgery was performed by Dr. Thomas Maxey at Atrium Health Levine Children’s HEARTest Yard Congenital Heart Center.
“He reconstructed sternum bone by doing a rib graft, so he took cartilage from her 11th and 12th ribs and reconstructed it with the cartilage and wire mesh and just created a whole sternum bone,” Horne said.
Seeing Aria full of cheer and no longer in pain is making the Christmas season brighter for Aria and her family.
“Above toys, above anything that she could get for Christmas this is the absolute best thing she could get for Christmas, in time for the holidays is a new chest wall, a sternum bone,” Horne said.
A GoFundMe has been started to help pay off Aria’s medical expenses.
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