How UF Health helped Jared clear his health hurdle

Jared DeProspero takes the position. His feet are in the starting blocks. His hips are high in the air. His fingers press the ground.

Taking to the track is nothing new for the high school junior. Jared had been on the track and field team at Buchholz High School since his freshman year.

The starting pistol sounds, and Jared explodes forward. Seconds later – 57.53 to be exact – he is a district champion and a Buchholz record-holder.

Pure elation spreads across his face. His mother, Melanie DeProspero, was on her own race to find her husband, Matt. She was outside the stadium in Seminole, Florida, and started sprinting to join Matt in the stands. Joyful tears streamed down both their faces, because those 10 hurdles were nothing compared with what Jared faced years earlier.

Jared did not always participate in track and field. His first love was soccer. As early as age 2, he was dribbling, juggling and weaving with a soccer ball between his feet.

Soccer was more than just a game. It was a form of expressing himself.

The soccer field is also where Melanie and Matt first noticed something peculiar with their oldest son. Jared played travel soccer and in eighth grade, his lung capacity and endurance waned noticeably. He sometimes had blurry vision or couldn’t see at all during games.

“I had this moment where I was like blacking out in a sense. It was all scary,” said Jared, who is now 17 years old and started his senior year this fall. “I felt like I was going to pass out.”

His parents watched as he contested for kicks less often and walked around the pitch more. Even at the dinner table, he seemed to be searching for air.

“There were times I said, ‘Why are you breathing so heavily?’” Melanie said. “We always thought this was something lung-related. We were just in shock that it wasn’t.”

The DeProspero family turned to UF Health, where Jared was born and had received care throughout his childhood.

“We were lost. What else do we do?” Melanie said. “Our lung doctor recommended we check in with cardiology.”

After a routine electrocardiogram, known as an ECG, and an echocardiogram, UF Health cardiologists discovered an atrial septal defect, or as Jared calls it, “a big hole in my heart.”

This hole in the wall of the heart’s atria is present in all newborns and typically closes several weeks after a baby is born. However, nearly 1 in 4 adults will still have this hole. In Jared's case, the hole was large, allowing significant amounts of blood to cross the chambers and cause heart enlargement. Without repair, a patient may develop abnormal heart rhythms, heart failure, pulmonary hypertension or even stroke.

“Atrial septal defects do cause important morbidity as you get older,” said Himesh V. Vyas, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist at the UF Health Congenital Heart Center and clinical associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine. “Left unrepaired, patients may develop problems in their 30s or 40s, where they’d start to have abnormal heart rhythms, like atrial flutter or fibrillation.”

Vyas and his team at the UF Health Congenital Heart Center developed a plan and placed a mesh device called a transcatheter septal occluder to patch the hole between Jared’s heart’s upper chambers. Melanie said the procedure was less invasive compared to open-heart surgery, given how Vyas and his team skillfully threaded a catheter into the femoral vein in the groin to place the tiny, umbrella-shaped device.

“If we do this procedure before late teenage years, the long-term outcome is excellent. It is as if they never had an ASD,” Vyas said.

Freshman year of high school can already be stressful. Jared’s procedure added a wrinkle.

The operation was in November, right in the middle of his first semester. When he returned after missing a few days of school, he faced physical activity restrictions, even related to his backpack. A classmate was assigned to carry it for him between classes.

“The first month or two was definitely the hardest part,” Jared said. “The procedure was really clean and easy, but it was a lot of having to refigure my body out.”

The recovery went well, and his limitations eventually vanished. Then, he started thinking about spring sports, specifically those with little contact after his surgery. He thought, “I know I’m fast, so let’s give track a try.”

His first season was about reacclimating, but the difference was astounding. Jared no longer tired as easily and his breathing returned to full strength. He ran his first meet just three months after surgery.

“In that amount of time, Jared’s body was able to heal well enough to be able to actually run at his first meet,” said his father Matt. “He’s resilient. He’s outstanding.”

Jared is no longer a newcomer. He was named varsity track and field team captain at Buchholz at the end of his junior season. Teammates graduated and coaches changed schools, but he remains.

“I love teaching, leading and just helping my teammates and watching their times drop,” said Jared with a smile.

Jared’s mother says she still gets nervous every time he races.

“His accomplishments are mind-blowing,” she said. “Of course, in the back of my mind, I still think about it — hopefully his heart is OK.”

Parents like Melanie and Matt DeProspero no longer need to wonder about their child’s heart. Starting this school year, all incoming ninth-grade student-athletes and any new student-athlete 10th grade or older must undergo an electrocardiogram before participating in any FHSAA-sanctioned sport.

“The main purpose behind ECG screenings is to identify conditions that could potentially lead to sudden death,” usually a result of previously unknown heart disease, Vyas said.

The DeProsperos know that catching hidden cardiac issues is not the end of someone’s sports career. Instead, it can be a lifesaving setback — or a precursor to an impressive comeback.

“It doesn’t end an athlete’s dreams. It saves their life. Jared’s story is an example,” his mother said. “His opportunity to compete was put on pause, but Dr. Vyas always made it clear he could get back into exercise and being athletic.”

Vyas now sees Jared every two years.

“He is back to doing all of the things he enjoys,” Vyas said. “It’s now as though he were never born with a hole in his heart.”