From Shallow Breaths to a Full Life: Eli's Story

How one young man's years-long search for answers led to a surgery that changed everything and a future without limits

For years, Eli Denard lived with symptoms that did not add up. Fatigue, shallow breathing and moments of fainting appeared gradually and without a clear explanation. His family knew his condition, pectus excavatum, ran through generations, but they had always been told it was cosmetic. What they did not know was that the condition could affect the heart and lungs in ways that are easy to miss and difficult to diagnose.

Eli’s story is familiar to many families who spend years searching for answers. Alongside his family, he endured a long path through specialists, tests and uncertainty.

A Condition Hidden in Plain Sight

Pectus excavatum, sometimes referred to as funnel chest, is a congenital chest wall deformity in which the breastbone sinks inward. It affects approximately one in every 1,000 births, making it one of the most common chest wall deformities. It is also hereditary. In the Denard family, it had been present across multiple generations, including Eli’s mother, grandmother, great grandfather and several cousins.

Like many families living with the condition, the Denards had been told for years that it was cosmetic. Eli himself did not think much of it at first. Around age 11 or 12, he started leaving his shirt on at the pool, quietly aware of the visible difference in his chest. He was active, playing sports and keeping up with friends. The idea that something was medically wrong did not fully register until his body began telling him otherwise.

As he grew, Eli found himself struggling to keep up with his peers. Fatigue set in long before it should have. His breathing became shallow. Fainting episodes appeared without warning.

What followed was a years-long search for answers that took Eli through the offices of roughly ten different doctors. He was tested for epilepsy and evaluated for a range of conditions. Each time, the results came back inconclusive. Each time, the family left without an explanation for the symptoms that had become a troubling pattern. At no point did anyone suggest that Eli’s pectus excavatum could be the cause.

“When you know something is wrong with your child, you keep pushing even when the answers are slow to come,” said Jennifer Denard, Eli’s mom. “I learned how important it is to advocate, ask questions and find a community of parents who understand what you are going through. That support kept us going when nothing made sense.”

The Turning Point that Changed Everything

For most teenagers, summer swim meets are about competition, camaraderie and the thrill of the race. For Eli, the summer of 2021 was something else entirely. After a bout of strenuous exercise, he suddenly could not breathe. He had to stop, lie down and wait, his chest rising and falling in shallow, labored waves while his family watched from the sidelines, frightened and desperate for answers they had been chasing for years.

It was the moment that finally changed everything.

A pulmonologist appointment was scheduled. For the first time, physicians began looking closely at the chest wall deformity that had been hiding in plain sight all along.

A cardiac MRI told the full story. Eli's pectus excavatum was pressing on his heart, displacing it from its correct position and encroaching on one of his lungs. The structural problem that had been dismissed for years was, in fact, the source of his symptoms.

The Decision to Act Becomes a Breath of Fresh Air

Within a month of that discovery, Eli made the decision himself. It was time for surgery.

The procedure used Zimmer Biomet’s Pectus Support Bar, a minimally invasive implant used in the surgical correction of pectus excavatum. The bar is placed beneath the sternum to gradually reshape the chest wall, restoring proper anatomy and relieving pressure on surrounding organs.

The results were immediate. Coming out of surgery, Eli noticed the difference right away. The fatigue that had shadowed him for years began to lift. Breathing, something most people never think about, suddenly felt different. Easier. Natural.

Ready to Take On the World