Feb. 23--HICKORY -- Belle Fish was only 2 weeks old when doctors learned she needed heart surgery.
She doesn't remember any of it. She doesn't remember being diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot, a severe heart defect that meant she had a blocked pulmonary valve and a hole in her heart.
By pure luck, it was the hole in her heart that was keeping her alive, allowing blood to go from one chamber of her heart to the next, bypassing the blocked valve.
Fish couldn't have surgery immediately when she was 2 weeks old. She had to wait until she weighed 15 pounds.
Fish's parents had to wait until Fish was 10 months old to get close to that weight. During that time, Fish could not get too excited, she couldn't cry too much, she couldn't get too upset. If she did, the valve in her heart could close.
Fish's first surgery cleared the blocked valve, creating a leaflet for it, and put a patch over the hole. She stayed in the hospital in Alabama, where her family lived at the time, for two-and-a-half weeks.
It seemed to work.
"I couldn't do certain sports that overexerted me, like swimming or basketball, but I could do other things, like modern dance and volleyball," said Fish, now 15.
She didn't let her surgery slow her down, though. Fish cheered at St. Stephens Lutheran School, was a competitive dancer, ran cross-country and didn't have to take any medication. She had annual checkups to ensure she was OK.
In November 2007, Fish learned she'd have to have surgery again.
"I was at my annual checkup, and I learned that my heart was 90 percent enlarged. I'd have to have another surgery to replace the flap with a valve, so more blood could get in my heart," Fish said.
Until her surgery on Jan. 31 in Boston, Fish wasn't allowed to do any physical exertion that might aggravate her heart.
"I was scared, because I didn't really remember the first surgery," Fish said.
Her classmates at St. Stephens Lutheran School helped send her off in style, though. They gave the then-eighth-grader a few gifts, including a blanket to snuggle up to, and a DVD with well wishes on it.
The doctors at the hospital also worked to ease her fears, by showing her around the hospital a few days before the surgery. They showed her where she'd be waking up, and some of the machines she'd be hooked up to.
After the surgery, Fish said she didn't feel too bad when she woke up. Fish said it was more painful a few days later.
However, she pushed herself to bounce back from her second major heart surgery. Within just 12 hours, Fish was taken off the breathing machine. Less than 24 hours after the surgery, Fish was walking. By 36 hours after the surgery, she no longer had any tubes or wires in her, not even an IV.
"The doctors think I recovered so fast because I exercised a lot before," Fish said.
When she got home from her stay in Boston, Fish got a present for doing so well -- her dog, Bo, a shortened version of the type of valve in her heart.
Fish has made a full recovery since her surgery about a year ago, and has been told she can do any sport she wants.
She's now a freshman at a school in New Jersey, and is the only freshman on the dance performance team at her school.
Fish said she also feels a lot better since the surgery, which she hopes is her last.
"I'm getting more exercise, and I'm not getting as tired," she said. "I feel like I have more energy."
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