Nico Barilla is the type of kid that enjoys being active. His parents, Michele and Chris, instilled this in him through their own lifestyle and love of sports. At the age of 9, the stellar athlete in Nico began to shine when he made it into his region’s Little League All-Stars team. It seemed that nothing could slow him down.

Being so involved in sports, Michele made sure Nico was always seen by his pediatrician for his yearly check-up, on time. In June 2013, during his routine physical, Nico’s pediatrician noticed something while listening to his heart.

“Nico’s doctor told us that she was hearing a ‘click’ in his heart which she had never encountered,”
says Michele. “Nico was for the most part asymptomatic, but I wanted to make sure we saw a cardiologist before his Little League season started back up again.”

Michele and Nico visited Jodie Gandy, M.D., cardiologist, Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital
Long Beach. After a quick consultation Michele was called out of the room and told that her son had a heart murmur.

A “murmur” is the sound of blood flowing through the heart’s valves. Common examples of murmurs are when blood is passing through a heart valve that has problems, or a condition that causes your heart to beat faster, forcing your heart to handle more blood quicker than normal. While a heart murmur has no symptoms, it can lead to other more serious heart issues.

Dr. Gandy took some images of Nico’s heart and found the cause of his murmur, an undiagnosed congenital heart defect which had left a hole in his heart.

Thinking back on Nico’s poor stamina level during regular play or practice, Michele and Chris knew they should act quickly to fix their son’s heart. They decided to meet with cardiovascular surgeons to discuss their options. One of which was Shaun Setty, M.D., medical director, Pediatric & Adult Congenital Cardiac Surgery, Miller Children’s.

“Chris and I wanted to limit Nico’s exposure to what could potentially be a frightening situation, so we met with a few surgeons alone to make sure they would be a good fit,” says Michele. “After meeting
Dr. Setty we knew we had found our surgeon. He was willing to work with us and when we brought Nico in to meet him he took his questions seriously and treated him like a patient rather than a case.”

Michele and Chris entrusted their son’s care to Dr. Setty and scheduled his surgery. While in surgery, Dr. Setty also discovered the congenital defect was actually a transitional atrioventricular septal defect. This is a congenital defect where the inside of the heart doesn’t completely form and leaves multiple holes between the heart chambers and abnormal heart valves. Without hesitation Dr. Setty, and his surgery team, were able to successfully correct this previously undetected defect.

Nico was in and out of the hospital in three days and quickly recovering from his surgery. He was advised to not put too much strain on his heart for six months, which kept him out of baseball that year.
Not being active was the hardest part of his recovery, but he was well enough to attend Camp del Corazon, a camp for children with heart disease, that same summer.

Six months later Nico was all clear for rigorous physical activity and started to experience a whole new life with his fixed heart. In retrospect Nico realized that his heart was giving him issues, but he never gave it much thought.

“Since having the surgery I can feel a difference in lots of things,” says Nico. “Even when I’m doing PE at school I can do things like run the mile without any shortness of breath. I feel better all around.”

He notices a difference when he exercises now and finds it a lot easier to keep up with the other kids on his baseball team, whereas before he was always last in laps and felt like his heart was about to jump out of his chest.

Now Nico, with a healthy heart, is ready to take his game to the next level. In a few years, Major League Baseball won’t know what hit it.