20 hours after birth Mederick turned blue and was dying. A nurse saved him and was diagnosed with Hypo Plastic Left Heart Syndrome. HLHS is a multitude of severe heart defects, in simple terms he was born with half a heart with many abnormalities to the parts he does have. He is missing 2 valves (the aortic and mitral valves), he has no left ventricle, the triscuspid valve he has is leaking, his aorta is too small, he had a hole in his heart. In addition to all this, when he turned blue shortly after birth this was called an acidosis so his organs began shutting down and this caused him to have a stroke.

He needed emergency surgery but because of his stroke he could not be operated because he would have bled to death. For 2 weeks he was between life and death, we were losing him daily. At 2 weeks of age he could no longer wait and needed his 1st open heart surgery, the "norwood".

This is the more medically correct terms:

Without life-prolonging interventions, HLHS is fatal, but with intervention, an infant may survive. A pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon may perform a series of operations or a full heart transplant. In the meantime, the ductus may be kept open to allow blood-flow using medication containing prostaglandin. Because these operations are complex and need to be individualized for each patient, a cardiologist must assess all medical and surgical options on a case-by-case basis.