Lincoln baby’s battle with heart defect brought her to brink of death

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Brezee Barr is one of the 1% of babies born in the U.S. with congenital heart disease.

She was born at Bryan East Medical Center in Lincoln on Sept. 8.

Since then, she has been battling her heart defect.

But now, her parents can breathe a sigh of relief and finally take their youngest daughter home.

Brezee was born three weeks early, and doctors soon realized there was a problem.

“On Sunday the 10th, we were told that she had something wrong with her heart,” said her mother, Jaycee.

Brezee was transferred to Children’s Nebraska in Omaha, where she was diagnosed with total anomalous pulmonary venous return, or TAP-VR for short.

That means Brezee’s veins weren’t connecting properly to carry oxygenated blood from her lungs to her heart.

One of her surgeons, Dr. Ali Ibrahimiye, said she had a rare variety of an already rare defect.

“I’ve been doing this for 10 years. Between all of my partners, we have half a century of experience,” Ibrahimiye said. “She is the first case of mixed cardiac defect.”

Brezee was stable after birth, so she was sent home to grow until she was a better candidate for surgery.

On Nov. 27, she returned to Omaha for her first open-heart surgery at just 2 months old.

For a while after, she seemed to be improving.

But in January, Jaycee noticed that Brezee wasn’t keeping her food down and was having trouble breathing.

So she took her back to the hospital.

“They said that if I would have waited any longer, she wouldn’t be with us today,” Jaycee said. “She would have passed away in her bed right beside me.”

Brezee returned to Children’s Nebraska, where she went into cardiac arrest.

“She ended up passing away for four minutes, and then they brought her back to life,” Jaycee said. “She was on life support for a day.”

The she underwent her second open-heart surgery.

One month later, Brezee got to come home and recover with her parents, grandparents and two older sisters.

“She’s happy,” Jaycee said. “She’s the most smiliest baby now.”

Jaycee wants to raise awareness of congenital heart disease during February, which is American Heart Month.

Ibrahimiye said it’s something everyone should keep in mind, even though only a small portion of the population is affected.

“My hope is that people just become better people by caring about issues that don’t necessarily affect us,” he said. “But we should, as human beings.”