Shannon Arriaga is the mother of a child who was born with a critical, congenital heart defect. Eric was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and he ended up having a Fontan Procedure. Shortly after the Fontan Procedure, he developed a life-threatening condition known as protein-losing enteropathy or PLE. For more information about PLE, check out this link: https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/protein-losing-enteropathy-ple but to explain it very simply, this is a condition where the body is unable to process proteins properly and, if it's serious enough, a person can die due to lack of growth and development.
When Eric's condition became dire enough, the family turned to their last option -- a heart transplant. Shannon tells Anna about the wait for a heart and what happened to Eric after he received the gift of life. Most importantly, she shares what happened to Eric's PLE after the heart transplant process.
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