A Waukee student has spent 682 days in a hospital. That meant two birthdays, two Halloweens, two Thanksgivings and two Christmases away from home for the now-seventh grader.
It also meant that 13-year-old Ava Grace Weitl missed her fifth grade clap out — an Eason Elementary School tradition marking students’ transition from fifth grade into middle school.
“That was the one thing she didn’t want to miss,” said her mother, Christina DeShaw.
But Wednesday, July 23 was Ava’s homecoming. And homecoming is what she got as her teachers and friends surprised her with her own clap out and welcome home celebration at Wildwood Park.
Ava was diagnosed in utero with a congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Her first open heart surgery was 90 minutes after she was born.
By the time she was admitted to the Mayo Eugenio Litta Children’s Hospital on Sept. 10, 2023, she showed increased signs of heart failure.
She was on an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation machine for about 3 ½ months. She received a donor’s heart in February 2024. And she spent time on dialysis until a kidney transplant from a living donor in January.
Her first snooze outside the hospital in almost two years was on the drive home Wednesday from Rochester, Minnesota, an afternoon nap in the backseat.
But a dream awaited her in the evening at her former elementary school.
School community comes together around their own
Lots of people wore Ava’s favorites — pink and flamingo-themed shirts — to welcome her home. Two of the people in flamingo shirts were her Eason principal, Clint Prohaska, and fifth grade teacher, Josh Schoon.
Prohaska taught Ava from kindergarten through fifth grade. He credited her as being a strong and courageous girl.
“This is what we’ve all been waiting for for her,” he said of her homecoming.
Many of Eason’s staff turned out even though they never had Ava as a student of their own. Schoon only had her in his classroom for a few weeks before she went remote from the hospital, but they formed a special bond.
Nurse visits, physical therapy and other medical needs sometimes took up a lot of Ava’s time during the regular school day, so Schoon and another teacher worked with her around dinnertime when she was available. Both teachers became “somewhere between teacher and family,” and Schoon said sometimes Ava would watch him cook dinner and he’d try to make her laugh, treating it like a cooking show.
But he said the whole Eason family has “wrapped their arms around (Ava) from the start.” Other students understood why they would do special events to keep Ava remotely engaged in the classroom, such as have “popsicle parties” to celebrate when she could have popsicles again after a surgery.
“She’s our hero,” Schoon said.
What’s next for Ava Weitl?
DeShaw said staff at Mayo could not immediately verify if Ava was the longest staying patient in pediatric cardiac care, but her stay certainly put her toward the top.
She said having her daughter home is an answer to her family’s prayers. Her first name, Ava, refers to “life,” and her middle name, Grace, refers to godly grace.
DeShaw said there’s also a deep sense of gratitude to the medical team at Mayo and to the people who donated their organs to her daughter. Ava’s uncle, DeShaw’s brother, was not a match but donated a kidney on her behalf, speeding up her kidney transplant from another donor who likewise was not a match for their own loved one.
“Something about being home is the best medicine,” DeShaw said. She added that being home is a reminder not to take little things for granted.
Her daughter has been learning how to play basketball for when she’s had more time to heal and will be off her breathing and feeding tubes in six months to a year. And Ava plans to attend seventh grade in-person this fall.
Now that she’s home, Ava said she really wants to learn how to barbecue and smoke meats and is looking forward to cooking some ribs.
She told the people gathered at the park that the welcome home “means the world to me.”
Phillip Sitter covers the suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com. Find out more about him online in the Register’s staff directory.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: ‘She’s our hero’: Iowan gets her own Waukee school tradition after 682-day hospital stay
Reporting by Phillip Sitter, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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