A local mother and volunteer was named the 2024 American Heart Association Upstate SC 2024 Leaders of Impact winner.
Beginning Oct. 17, 2024, Madison Potts raised funds for Leaders of Impact, a seven-week competition that raised awareness for heart disease. Through mostly word of mouth, Potts raised $2,500 for the competition. A portion of the proceeds also went to local pantries affected by Hurricane Helene.
Twelve years ago, Potts’ son Cooper was diagnosed at birth with total anomalous pulmonary venous return. He had open-heart surgery at 2 weeks old. Although he was born in Greenville, the heart condition led the family to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston just after he was born.
“Research is important. If that had happened a decade before, who knows.” —Madison Potts, American Heart Association Upstate SC 2024 Leaders Impact winner
Potts stayed in the nearby Ronald McDonald House, then in a hotel, for the first six weeks of her son’s life.
“He had a surgery at two weeks, and then it took about four weeks for them to discharge (him),” she said. “They had to make sure that he was eating and all that regularly before he was able to be discharged. And so then after that it was just follow-up care with a cardiologist in town.”
During the last four weeks of his stay, doctors monitored the size of Cooper’s heart to ensure growth and to watch for enlargement.
Cooper is now 12 and participates in travel baseball. The situation left Potts with a desire to learn more about the issue as well as preventative care.
“I try to be more aware of what we put in our bodies; try to remain active,” she said. “If I feel like something might be wrong, I know to go to the doctor pretty quickly instead of waiting because you don’t know if it’s something small or if it’s something big.”
Going through Cooper’s experience left Potts with many questions and underlined the urgency of further study on heart health.
“Research is important,” Potts said. “If that had happened a decade before, who knows.”
