A 12-year-old girl with a rare heart condition is reaching out to the community to help her family and others faced with mounting medical bills.
Breana Bladel, 12, has a rare heart condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. When she was born, the left ventricle of Breana's heart was severely underdeveloped, leaving her with only one side of her heart capable of pumping blood to her entire body.
"You don't want to say my child is dying," said Tina Bladel, Breana's mother. "You want to be optimistic. All families want to be optimistic and say, 'This is how we're fighting this...' When the reality behind that is, they're not doing that well, and there is a chance they might not make it."
Breana has been in and out of hospitals throughout her life, but things took a turn for the worse in the past four months. In November, she was diagnosed with protein losing enteropathy, a condition characterized by severe loss of serum proteins into the intestine.
Four months, three hospital stays and $23,000 later, Breana created A Hopeful Heart Foundation.
"It's for families that have kids in the hospital and to help them get through it all and help them pay for their bills and stuff, so they don't have to worry they can just stay with their kids," she said.
Breana's parents said the mounting medical bills have been overwhelming for their average, middle-income family.
"You can't cry in front of your child, so you cry at night," Tina Bladel said. "And my husband has to go to work and support our family, so he can't be there to lean on."
"I can't be there with her, and she needs that," her husband, Dave Bladel said. "She needs that love and support."
Breana said she hopes the foundation will be able to raise enough money to help her family, as well as others who are fighting the same battle.
"It's giving them hope for the future and letting them know they don't have to make this journey alone," Tina Bladel said.
But the young founder of A Hopeful Heart said her biggest hope is making it to her 13th birthday, which is just two weeks away.
