CNN
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Her smile is vibrant, cheery, typically goofy and at all times contagious. However footage can’t utterly seize her upbeat, constructive vibe. At 21, Claire Bridges has a mature spirit that amazes those that love her in addition to the medical doctors who needed to function on her coronary heart and take away each legs to save lots of her life.

“She had a will to stay, perseverance and a type of twinkle in her eye — I inform all my sufferers that’s half the battle,” stated Dr. Dean Arnaoutakis, a vascular surgeon on the College of South Florida Well being in Tampa who amputated Bridges’ legs after issues from Covid-19.

“Most individuals can be despondent and really feel like life had cheated them,” stated Dr. Ismail El-Hamamsy, a professor of cardiovascular surgical procedure on the Icahn Faculty of Drugs at Mount Sinai in New York Metropolis, who operated on Bridges’ coronary heart.

“However she instructed me, ‘I really feel like I’m the luckiest particular person on this planet. I’ve my complete life forward of me. I can have children, a future, so many issues to stay up for.’

“There was not as soon as that I regarded into her eyes that I didn’t really feel her positiveness was true and real,” he stated. “Claire’s story is one in all simply unbelievable resilience and positivity.”

In January 2022, Bridges was a 20-year-old mannequin along with her personal house, a gaggle of associates and a part-time job as a bartender in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was a vegan and “exceptionally wholesome,” in accordance with her mom, Kimberly Smith.

When she caught Covid-19 that month, nobody anticipated her be hospitalized. She was totally vaccinated and boosted.

However Bridges had been born with a typical genetic coronary heart defect: aortic valve stenosis, a mutation of the valve within the coronary heart’s foremost artery, the aorta. As a substitute of getting three cusps, or flaps, that permit oxygen-rich blood move from the center into the aorta and to the remainder of the physique, folks with aortic valve stenosis are sometimes born with simply two. The situation makes the center work extraordinarily onerous to do its job, usually inflicting breathlessness, dizziness and fatigue.

“I may work out and stuff, however I may by no means play sports activities,” she instructed CNN. “I couldn’t run. I couldn’t overexert myself.”

Her mother added, “We may actually inform she started to study her limits as she bought older — she would get out of breath, cease and take a break.”

Whether or not as a consequence of her coronary heart or one other unknown cause, Covid-19 hit Bridges onerous. Her well being rapidly spiraled uncontrolled.

“Excessive fatigue, chilly sweats — progressively each single day it could get tougher to attempt to eat or drink something,” she recalled. “Then in the future my mother discovered me unresponsive and rushed me to the hospital. I flatlined 3 times that night time.”

Bridges was placed on dialysis, a ventilator and an exterior pump for her failing coronary heart. She slipped into psychosis.

“I used to be considering that everybody was making an attempt to kill me, however I used to be holding on,” she stated, including that she then noticed a vibrant mild and her late grandfather.

“He was sitting on a bench, fishing, and he was carrying a baseball cap,” she stated. “Then I noticed my mother and father by way of a window. I don’t know if I really did or if it was in my delusion, however I believed, ‘I can’t go away them like this.’ And my physique simply actually wouldn’t surrender.”

Whereas Bridges’ spirit battled on, medical doctors struggled to save lots of her life. Her organs started to close down, additional weakening her frail coronary heart. Blood wasn’t reaching her extremities, and tissues in each legs started to die.

Surgeons tried to save lots of as a lot of her legs as potential. First, they opened tissue in each legs to scale back swelling, then amputated one ankle. Lastly, there was no alternative: Each legs needed to be eliminated.

Docs gathered round her mattress to interrupt the information.

“I keep in mind trying up at them and saying, ‘Properly, thanks for saving my life. And oh, can I’ve bionic legs?’ ” Bridges stated.

“Everybody was completely shocked that she was taking it so effectively,” Smith recalled about her daughter. “However my total household knew that if this tragedy needed to occur to any of us, it could be Claire who would deal with it the perfect. Upbeat and constructive, that’s Claire.”

Dropping her legs was solely a part of Bridges’ battle again to well being. “There have been so many issues that she may have died from whereas she was within the hospital,” Smith stated.

Malnourished, Bridges was placed on a feeding tube. She vomited, rupturing a part of her small gut, and “practically bled out,” Smith stated. To avoid wasting her, medical doctors needed to do an emergency transfusion — a harmful process as a consequence of her weak coronary heart.

“She virtually died whereas getting the emergency transfusion as a result of they needed to pump the blood in so quick,” Smith stated. “Then the following day she bled once more, however they caught it in time.”

Bridges developed refeeding syndrome, a situation by which electrolytes, minerals and different very important fluids in a malnourished physique are thrown out of steadiness when meals is reintroduced, inflicting seizures, muscle and coronary heart weak spot, and a coma in some circumstances. With out fast therapy, it could possibly result in organ failure and dying.

In one other blow, her hair started to fall out, possible as a result of lack of correct vitamin. Her household and associates got here to her rescue.

“I knew that the one strategy to cease me from sobbing each time I pulled chunks of hair out of my head was to simply do away with all of it,” Bridges stated. “I instructed my brother Drew I used to be fascinated about shaving my head, and with out lacking a beat, he instantly checked out me and stated, ‘I’ll shave mine with you.’

“Then it snowballed into everybody telling me they’d shave their heads, too,” Bridges stated with a smile. “It was really a particularly candy, enjoyable and releasing time — plus I’ve at all times needed to shave my head, so I bought to cross it off my bucket record!”

Bridges credit her family and friends — together with members of the group who organized fundraisers or reached out on social media — for her upbeat angle all through the ordeal.

“I’m very blessed to have such an incredible household and in addition associates and other people in my group which can be like household,” she stated. “Individuals I didn’t know, those who I haven’t spoken to since elementary faculty or highschool have been reaching out to me.

“Sure, I allowed myself to grieve, and there have been darkish days. However truthfully, my associates and my household surrounded me with a lot love that I by no means had a second to essentially suppose negatively about my legs or how I look now.”

Bridges’ coronary heart introduced one other hurdle: Already frail earlier than her extended sickness, it was now severely broken. She wanted a brand new valve in her aorta, and shortly.

“We at all times knew Claire would want an open-heart surgical procedure in some unspecified time in the future,” her mom stated. “Docs needed her as previous as potential earlier than they changed the valve as a result of the older you’re, the larger you’re, and there’s much less probability of needing one other operation quickly after.”

Her medical doctors reached out to Mount Sinai’s El-Hamamsy, an skilled in a extra sophisticated type of aortic valve substitute known as the Ross process.

“Anyone who has an anticipated life expectancy of 20 years or extra is unquestionably a possible candidate for the Ross,” El-Hamamsy stated, “and it’s an ideal resolution for a lot of younger folks like Claire.”

Not like extra conventional surgical procedures that substitute the malfunctioning aortic valve with a mechanical or cadaver model, the Ross process makes use of the affected person’s personal pulmonary valve, which is “a mirror picture of a standard aortic valve with three cusps,” El-Hamamsy stated.

“It’s a dwelling valve, and like every dwelling factor, it’s adaptable,” the surgeon stated. “It turns into like a brand new aortic valve and performs all of the very refined capabilities {that a} regular aortic valve would do.”

The pulmonary valve is then changed with a donor from a cadaver, “the place it issues rather less as a result of the pressures and the stresses on the pulmonary facet are a lot decrease,” he stated.

The usage of a substitute half from the affected person’s personal physique for the aortic valve additionally eliminates the necessity for lifelong use of blood thinners and the continuing danger of main hemorrhaging or clotting and stroke, El-Hamamsy stated. And since the brand new valve is stronger than the malfunctioning valve it replaces, sufferers aren’t as prone to want future surgical procedures.

“Ross is the one substitute operation for the aortic valve that enables sufferers to have a standard life expectancy,” he stated, “and a very regular high quality of life with no restrictions, no modifications to their life-style and an excellent sturdiness of the operation.”

The Ross process is extra technically difficult than inserting a tissue valve or a mechanical valve, “a few of the easiest operations that we as cardiac surgeons would ever do,” El-Hamamsy stated.

As a result of the operation takes a excessive stage of technical ability, it’s solely out there in just a few surgical services presently.

“It requires devoted surgeons who wish to commit their observe to the Ross process and who’ve the technical expertise and experience to try this,” he added. “Sufferers must know they need to be present process the surgical procedure in a Ross-certified facility.”

When El-Hamamsy first met Bridges in a video name final spring, he wasn’t positive he would be capable of do the surgical procedure. Solely 127 kilos earlier than she bought sick, Bridges had misplaced practically 70 kilos throughout her hospitalization.

“She was so emaciated. There was no approach I may take her into the working room the best way she was,” El-Hamamsy stated. “I by no means anticipated that she would get well so rapidly and preserve her amazingly constructive mentality.”

Slowly, over many months, Bridges fought her approach again to well being. In rehab, she started to study to stroll with prosthetic decrease limbs. As she bought stronger, she has continued one in all her favourite actions — mountain climbing.

“At six months, I may hardly acknowledge her — she had gained weight again, her pores and skin had totally healed over on the amputation websites, and he or she was a very different-appearing particular person to the malnourished and debilitated woman I had met within the hospital,” stated Arnaoutakis, the vascular surgeon.

The center operation was efficiently accomplished in December. At this time, Bridges is in the course of cardiac rehabilitation and searching ahead to being fitted for prosthetic blades — J-shaped, carbon-fiber decrease limbs that may enable her to run on a observe for the primary time in her life.

She’s additionally returned to modeling, proud to indicate the world how effectively she has survived.

El-Hamamsy isn’t stunned. “I instructed her from the day I met her on that Zoom, ‘It is going to be such a privilege to take care of you since you’ve impressed me. I’ve by no means met a teenager with this stage of maturity and outlook on life.’

“I nonetheless consider Claire each infrequently once I stumble upon issue with life or no matter. It’s a reminder that happiness and positivity is a alternative. Claire made that alternative.”