Meet our July Patient of the Month, Teegan. Teegan was born in Minnesota with her twin sister Riley, but right from the start, their lives would take on very different paths. Their parents knew that Teegan would be born with some heart complications, but the extent of her congenital disorder wasn’t revealed until the day she was born. They were told that there wasn’t much hope, and the best thing to do was go home and enjoy what time they had with Teegan.

Several months passed and Teegan was, against all odds, thriving; not at the rate of her twin, Riley, but nonetheless she was defying the doctors’ predictions. It was then that the family reached out to the Heart Institute at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. Determined to repair Teegan’s heart, the cardiac team used innovative techniques to figure out the best way to treat Teegan’s condition. She underwent open heart surgery at Nicklaus Children’s, and she’ll need more in the future, but after spending many months at the hospital, Teegan was able to do something her family could only dream of: go back home.