{"id":40047,"date":"2023-12-14T10:33:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40047"},"modified":"2023-12-14T10:33:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:33:57","slug":"you-were-there-for-me-lakeland-girl-reunites-with-cardiac-surgeon-who-saved-her-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/14\/you-were-there-for-me-lakeland-girl-reunites-with-cardiac-surgeon-who-saved-her-life\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You were there for me\u2019: Lakeland girl reunites with cardiac surgeon who saved her life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As she waited in the lobby at Johns Hopkins All Children\u2019s Hospital, Bella Sanchez\u2019s heart was pounding.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

She was moments away from reuniting with the surgeon who gave her that healthy heartbeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight there, is that him?\u201d she asked her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere he is, right there,\u201d her mother, Melissa Sanchez Vann responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, without hesitation, Bella took off in a sprint to give Dr. James Quintessenza a hug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just came over me. I was going to wait until he got a little closer but I just couldn\u2019t help myself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lakeland 12-year old said she has dreamed of reuniting with Dr. Q, as he is known, since she was 7 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would not be alive at this exact moment if it wasn\u2019t for you,\u201d she read to him from a handwritten note. \u201cI know deep in my heart that you were there for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When her mother was 20 weeks pregnant, an ultrasound found Bella had a rare congenital heart disease, known as \u201cHolmes Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBasically, you have two pumping chambers normally in a heart and she only has one functioning pumping chamber,\u201d said Dr. Quintessenza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of three open-heart surgeries before Bella turned 3 years old, Dr. Quintessenza \u201crearranged her plumbing,\u201d as he puts it, to allow for one pumping chamber to do the work of two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his three-decade long career caring for thousands of patients, Dr. Quintessenza said he has operated on approximately 10 patients with Holmes Heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we did not do the surgeries, she couldn\u2019t live,\u201d said Dr. Quintessenza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a fact that Bella has lived with her whole life and why she so badly wanted to meet her surgeon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, she was not only reunited with him, but others from the cardiac ICU team who helped with her operations and recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going, Oh my God, look at her life, look at the quality of her life, what she\u2019s able to do. It\u2019s just phenomenal,\u201d said Dr. Quintessenza. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful right? I wouldn\u2019t trade my job with anybody\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Bella may have been too young to remember her doctor, her mother, Melissa Sanchez Vann definitely does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday\u2019s reunion took her right back to those terrifying days sitting in the waiting room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHanding her over to a surgeon is never easy but Dr. Q. has a calm about him, a reassurance about him that he will take the best care of your child that he can and he did and we are very blessed and thankful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow-up appointments have shown Bella is in good health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her doctors encourage her to stay active and continue playing volleyball and swimming, which she loves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also loves art and gave an original piece to Dr. Q, who says he will hang it in his office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow was it looking at him?\u201d asked the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmazing. I just felt like I knew him in my heart when I first saw him,\u201d said Bella Sanchez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As she waited in the lobby at Johns Hopkins All Children\u2019s Hospital, Bella Sanchez\u2019s heart was pounding. She was moments away from reuniting with the surgeon who gave her that… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7019],"class_list":["post-40047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-you-were-there-for-me-lakeland-girl-reunites-with-cardiac-surgeon-who-saved-her-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}