Toddler Is Healthy, Full of Energy After Lifesaving Surgery

After Liam’s second bout of pneumonia in three months, his mother Cassidi knew something deeper was wrong. He seemed lethargic and wasn’t eating nearly as much as his older brother.

At their pediatrician’s office, a doctor they hadn’t seen before pressed her stethoscope against Liam’s chest and paused. “I don’t like what I’m hearing in his lungs,” she said. Liam’s respiratory rate was 60 breaths per minute – dangerously high for a child his age. The pediatrician referred them to Nadia Kobal, CNP, a senior Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital’s division of Pediatric Pulmonology, suspecting asthma.

Nadia was concerned about Liam. While asthma was possible, she felt it was necessary to evaluate for other diagnoses and ordered a chest CT for the following week.

When the results came back, pediatric pulmonology fellow Dr. Robby Goldberg, pediatric pulmonologist Dr. Daniel Craven and pediatric radiologist Dr. Michael Wein all reviewed the images. The images increased their concern, with specific worry about the appearance of his lungs as well as the apparent enlarged size of his heart. Unfortunately, the images did not provide a definitive answer; rather, they heightened the need to move quickly with additional tests to solve the medical mystery.

Over the following days, Cassidi watched her son go through test after test. The team at UH Rainbow ruled out cystic fibrosis, then brought in gastroenterology, ENT and cardiology. Each specialist examined Liam, searching for answers.

“Every time we thought we were getting closer, another test would come back normal,” Cassidi remembers. “But Liam wasn’t normal. I could see it every time he tried to catch his breath.”

The care team decided to admit Liam to UH Rainbow for additional testing under anesthesia, including scopes and an echocardiogram. Then, during what should have been routine procedures, Liam went into cardiac arrest.

The medical team immediately performed CPR and worked to stabilize him. An emergency echocardiogram revealed the cause: blood flow was blocked from his lungs to his left ventricle. Liam had been living with an extremely rare congenital heart disease called cor triatriatum, which is Latin for “heart with three atria,” rather than the normal two.

Suddenly, everything made sense – the pneumonia, the breathing difficulties, the mysterious symptoms that didn’t fit any single diagnosis. Liam’s heart had been failing him from birth.

Pediatric heart surgeons, cardiologists and cardiac intensivists from both UH Rainbow and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, working through the Congenital Heart Collaborative, reviewed Liam’s case together on an emergency conference call. Along with UH Rainbow pulmonologists, they agreed: Liam needed surgery as soon as possible because he was at risk of sudden destabilization.

Liam’s parents had two hours to process the news. Their toddler had a rare heart defect and needed immediate open-heart surgery.

On December 18, 2025, surgeons made an incision less than five hours after the first diagnostic image appeared on the echocardiogram. Liam’s open-heart surgery to repair the defect was performed by Dr. Daniel Nento, Chief of Pediatric Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery, and his colleague Dr. Roderick Yang. The three-hour procedure required precision and years of specialized expertise. Afterward, Liam received care from the entire UH Rainbow Heart Center team as he recovered in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (PCICU).

When surgery was over, Cassidi and her husband were brought to see Liam in the PCICU. “I remember we both walked in and just looked at each other,” Cassidi said. “We couldn’t believe how much color was back in Liam’s face.”

Liam was discharged the day before New Year’s Eve. “We are so grateful to the entire team at Rainbow for not giving up on our son,” said Cassidi. “From the doctors and surgeons to the nurses and child life specialists, we truly felt like family to them.”

Today, Liam’s recovery is going exceptionally well. His family is witnessing a whole new side of their son – full of energy and appetite – and they’re grateful every day for the clinical expertise, speed and precision that saved his life.