Navy Joy thrives after heart surgeries

By Courtney Finafrock, Riley Children’s Health videographer, cfinafrock@iuhealth.org

Anyone would be surprised to learn all Navy Northam - whose middle name is aptly Joy - has endured in her short two years of life. The smiley little girl was born on August 22, 2024, with a rare heart condition called Shone's complex. Maliyah Northam, Navy's mother, learned about her condition when she was about 30 weeks pregnant.

"I was actually seeing a provider outside of Riley to begin with but on one magical Monday, Dr. [Timothy] Cordes came and he was the one to finally figure out her diagnosis, which is Shones complex," Maliyah Northam recalled.

Dr. Cordes explained that Shone's complex is the name of the congenital heart disease that causes multiple obstructive lesions impacting the left side of the patient's heart.

"So, there's often a mitral valve component, either below or at or above the aortic valve, and around the arch where there's a coarctation of the aorta," Dr. Cordes explained. "So, you have to have those three components that can all have different degrees of involvement. Navy's, when we first saw her, was primarily in the aortic arch. The coarctation, but her aortic valve subsequently, needed surgery about a year later. Her mitral valve has been the mildest and probably will not need intervention."

Navy underwent her first surgery when she was just five days old. After that, she had routine echoes every two to three months. At her December appointment, Navy's medical team gave her the go-ahead to begin scheduling echoes every four months. But by April 2025, her mother knew something was wrong.

"We had started to notice she wasn't gaining any weight at all," Maliyah Northam explained. "By this time, she was eight [or] nine months old and she was not crying, she was not sitting up well."

After that April appointment, Maliyah Northam remembers quickly preparing for surgery which ultimately took place in July 2025.

"She had her open-heart surgery in July to repair her aortic valve," Maliyah explained. "As I said, she was not crawling, she wasn't even sitting up straight but when she had the surgery, I remember in her crib at the hospital, she was standing! I think it was within the first week, she started crawling. She was so happy."

Maliyah said she feels Riley Children's Health prepared her and her husband, Daniel, for Navy's birth and diagnosis. She spoke about the care conference before Navy was born which allowed her to meet with all of the providers who would care for her newborn daughter and visit each of the floors in the hospital where her baby would stay.

"Nothing was left unanswered," Maliyah said. "We love our cardiologist. I chose him. That day that he found her diagnosis, I was asked when she was born, who do you want your cardiologist to be, and I picked him. I was adamant on picking him. I love his voice of reason, and he was the one to make me feel like my instincts mattered and that has continued on."

Maliyah also shared appreciation for Navy's surgeon, Dr. Mark Rodefeld.

"He always came and checked up on our room," Maliyah said. "Two times a day, at least, with both surgeries. I would be in there, and he would see me holding her, and he would ask how I was doing."

For Dr. Cordes, this feedback and these relationships make the job worthwhile.

"It is always my opinion that it's a privilege to be entering somebody's life with this very, very difficult problem and a long journey," Dr. Cordes said. "Navy's going to need a cardiologist for the rest of her life. It's always rewarding to have this interaction with families and their kids and see someone do as well as they're doing."

As Navy continues growing, her parents look back fondly on their time at Riley. They both cited the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Indiana as a blessing during their stay.

"My family and I we're really close," Maliyah said. "My husband works from home, we're all in our house every single day together. I feel like Riley's really, really family-oriented in a sense that we were all able to stick together. I feel like that kept me from worrying about everybody else. I could focus on Navy."