Hadleigh Johnston was in sixth grade when she first struggled to catch her breath.
She couldn’t make it through a private tennis lesson without stopping multiple times to rest.
“Her tennis instructor told me that wasn’t normal,” Johnston’s mother Jennifer said.
Johnston struggled to improve her fitness level throughout junior high and high school. She played tennis and golf but never made the varsity teams no matter how hard she trained. In fact, working harder seemed to make her breathing problems worse.
When she joined the choir and musical theater in high school, her breathing remained an issue.
I couldn’t get any air into my lungs when I was singing and performing. I would try to hold long notes by supporting the air in my lungs, but I just couldn’t do it.
She asked her friends for advice on breath control while singing. She tried everything that was suggested, and still nothing improved. When she had a solo in the school musical as a junior in high school, she couldn’t get the air she needed to sing it.
Johnston also started to notice that clothes fit her body differently than her friends. She wore high-neck halter top dresses to school dances to hide the indentation in her chest. She noticed her sports bra didn’t sit quite right, and she felt uncomfortable anytime she tried to improve her posture.
After years of trying to fix things on her own with yoga and posture braces, Johnston met with her primary care provider, who referred her to a pulmonologist to check her lungs.
“The pulmonologist told me I didn’t have asthma but gave me an inhaler to try out just in case,” she said. “It didn’t help.”
Johnston then met with Lauren M. Baumann, MD, a pediatric surgeon at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. She specializes in chest wall deformities. As soon as she saw Johnston’s chest, she knew it was pectus excavatum. A stress test and extensive imaging confirmed the diagnosis.
The CT scan showed that Johnston’s Haller Index—a measurement that shows the severity of the indentation—was 6.4. Anything above 3.25 is considered severe. Johnston qualified for the Nuss procedure, a surgical intervention that is life-changing for patients with pectus excavatum.
“We insert titanium bars into the chest wall, under the sternum, and then back out of the chest wall on the other side,” Baumann said. “These bars bump out the chest and act as a scaffolding to remodel the chest and get rid of the indentation.”
Each patient has at least two bars, so the chest wall is fully supported as things heal, and the bars remain under the muscles and skin. The bars stay in place for at least three years after surgery. Once they’re removed, the chest maintains its new shape.
Having a clear diagnosis and a path forward was huge for Johnston and her family.
She had surgery with Baumann on July 29, 2025.
Dr. Baumann was amazing! She was incredible, and she put all my fears to rest, right from the very start. We were so lucky she was the one to operate on Hadleigh.
While the first few days after surgery were uncomfortable for Johnston, her recovery was fairly quick. She was diligent with her rehabilitation exercises and never missed a day. She also had the support of her family to help keep her moving.
“My dad would have me walk around our couch a lot after getting back from the hospital,” she said. “Even going up the stairs a few days after surgery wasn’t too bad.”
Two weeks after surgery, Johnston attended a three-hour back-to-school orientation to get registered for her senior year of high school. Although she was tired, she made it through, and when school started on August 13, she was ready.
“She was pretty hellbent on getting to school on the first day,” Jennifer said. “I think that really helped her keep going during her recovery.”
Johnston had an amazing—and busy—senior year at Juan Diego Catholic High School. She served as student body president and was also cast as the lead in the school musical.
She could finally breathe. She noticed a huge difference while performing, especially when singing high notes.
I could suddenly support those notes a lot better. Coming back to musical theater after surgery, I felt a lot more comfortable and confident.
While both males and females can have pectus excavatum, it’s much more common in males. Unfortunately, it can go undetected for years before diagnosis in females.
“Girls don’t normally notice it unless it’s a significant indentation,” Baumann said. “Even if they do notice it, they may not realize there are other girls who have this—and that there is a way to fix it.”
For Johnston, life is better than ever since her surgery. She hopes that sharing her experience will help other girls who have pectus excavatum find the answers they need.
I would make the decision to have this surgery a million times over again. I feel so much more comfortable in my body, and I can do the things I love without worrying about being able to breathe. It’s changed my life
This fall, Johnston will start college at the University of Utah. She has been accepted into the honors college and plans to major in theater.
