Shannon Holly Knows How Important Finding a Cardiologist You Trust Is

Pictured left: Shannon and her daughter today. Pictured right: Shannon's daughter the day they learned no surgery was needed.

On April 20, 2010, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I can still remember what it was like when the doctor gave her to me. I remember thinking she was all ours, and how I wanted to make sure she was always safe, happy and healthy. I also remember my husband asking why I was crying and I said, "I just have so much love in me, it's pouring out of my eyes."

Unfortunately, at a routine checkup two weeks later, our pediatrician heard a swooshing sound that you are not supposed to hear in a baby's chest.  They suggested seeing a cardiologist right away. My mind was racing, I wanted to know why she was saying that my beautiful, brand new, perfectly healthy baby had to see a heart doctor?  Was the doctor in the wrong room? Was she even talking to us?

We found out that my daughter had two significant holes in her little heart, and there was nothing that I could do about it. Soon, the cardiologist was talking to us about our "options" and neither of them was acceptable: open-heart surgery that involved stopping her heart to close the holes or stringing some sort of mechanism through her body, starting at her ankle, and leaving it in her heart to close up the holes.

I prayed, I positively visualized, and I made sure our cardiologist was the best there was in my vicinity.

We could have done the surgery while she was too small to remember it, or we were given the option to wait until her fifth birthday giving her a chance to heal on her own. We chose to wait and let her body grow, as a result, there would be many more appointments. I waited with this angst for the next four and a half years until we were one day before her fifth birthday, giving her little body every chance to fix this.

On the day of her big appointment, my eyes were full of tears again, not just because I had so much love in me, but because I also had that much fear. Our cardiologist entered the room and gave us news that changed us forever: one hole was completely closed and the other was only one millimeter big. There was no reason to operate.

Today we have a happy, healthy and strong ten-year-old who only remembers that day because she got to pick a really cool sticker from the sticker box. Having a cardiologist you can trust is everything.

I lived in a different area when this happened, but I can tell the doctors at Cardiology Associates of Ocean County are doctors you can trust with your heart or your baby's heart. Their practice has been operating for more than three decades, and they are the only cardiologists in Monmouth and Ocean counties who take next-day appointments. Imagine the security of knowing you can get in to see your experienced specialist when you need to.

If you or a loved one need a cardiologist you can trust, call (732) 458-7575 or visit heartdoctorsnj.com today.