‘Heart size of a thumb’

It was a heartwarming display.

Ohio hospital staff melted hearts online after showering a toddler with rapturous applause and bubbles as he prepared to undergo a heart transplant after months of waiting. The touching display went down January 19 — but is currently blowing up on TikTok, where it amassed 4.1 million views in a matter of days.

“Our son has received a new heart,” gushed Mark’s grateful mom Patience Clouse in the tear-jerking clip, which was filmed at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “His surgeon did amazing, and I’m still in awe knowing that he performed such a major and life-saving surgery on a heart the size of our thumb.”

The feel-good footage shows 15-month-year-old Mark Clouse Jr. being wheeled through a hallway lined with cheering medical workers en route to his long-awaited surgery.

As he passes by, his cardiovascular cheering squad claps and showers the plucky tyke’s gurney with bubbles a la an NFL quarterback during a post-championship parade. At one point, a nurse lifts the baby’s hand up high in celebration of the life-changing milestone.

Thankfully, the procedure went off without a hitch and little Mark is slated to be released from the hospital on Thursday, February 9. “After 8 long months of being inpatient, we are about to finally be discharged!” Mark’s mother exclaimed Tuesday in a Facebook post.

This marked the culmination of a long and harrowing journey that began after Mark was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) — a severe form of congenital heart disease — at just 35 weeks gestation, Action News 5 reported.

Affecting 1 in 100 babies, this genetic defect prevents the left side of the sufferer’s ticker from developing correctly, affecting the normal flow of blood to the heart, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

As a result, the infant had to undergo his first open heart surgery when he was just 6 days old. Despite the successful operation, Mark suffered a massive stroke when he was several weeks old, followed by another minor stroke a couple months later. He was also plagued by frequent seizures that impacted his quality of life.

For a time, the family was able to mitigate Mark’s symptoms with medications. However, the tot experienced heart failure over the summer, whereupon he was finally placed on a priority list for a transplant.

“We spent a long 7 months waiting for a heart to come available, praying every day that God perform a miracle, a full healing, without medical intervention,” Mark’s relieved mother exclaimed on Facebook. “In many ways God was with our son, our family, and made sure we made it to the day we had been waiting so long for … Heart Transplant Day!”

Thankfully, Patience says that Mark’s body has accepted the new heart, and that he’s recovering well following surgery.

“If all continues to go well in the next few months, and no rejection or illness creeps it’s way in, then we should be looking at finally going home together around April/May!” she wrote.