Landon was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. It is explained here as simply as it can be. I was lucky, I guess you could say. I found out about Landon's defect when I was pregnant. Most of the time it isn't noticed until the baby is born. A severe murmur is heard during the newborn checkup and the baby is wisked off to a children's hospital for immediate surgery before the parents even know what happened. I was at least prepared it was possible. Thankfully, after a few preterm labor scares, Landon was born full term and his heart was strong enough and functioning well enough to come home with me so he could grow and get even stronger before having surgery. A baby's heart is only about the size of his or her fist. Can you imagine what it must be like to operate on a heart that tiny? It baffles
my mind to this day.
Landon was born December 28th and we scheduled his surgery for May 15th. At the beginning of April I had some medical issues and had to take a medication that didn't allow me to continue to breastfeed. I slowly weaned Landon to formula. When he was completely switched over he started reacting to the lactose in the formula. He would get a tummy ache and have terrible crying fits. They progressively got worse and Landon started having tet spells (cyanotic episodes). Landon's cardiologist told us this might happen from time to time so I didn't immediately worry but it was still very scary to see when it happened. As the spells occurred more often and got worse I decided to call his doctor to be reassured he wasn't in danger. She asked me to bring him in which resulted in an ambulance ride to Wisconsin Children's Hospital in Milwaukee after he had a tet spell in her office. We got there on Friday. He had surgery on Monday morning and much to my amazement was discharged Friday of the same week. To repair Landon's heart they took a piece of the sack around his heart and used it to patch the hole between his chambers. They used gore-tex to replace what they took from his pericardial sack. They also made his pulmonary valve bigger. Unfortunately, by changing the valve it caused the valve to leak. In this situation, after the right ventricle pumps blood to the pulmonary artery some of the blood is able to flow backwards through that valve. This causes extra volume in the right ventricle and makes the heart work harder to pump it back out. Because exercise makes muscles bigger this kind of extra work cause the ventricle to become enlarged and pump inefficiently. Landon's cardiologist keeps an eye on that valve through yearly checkups like he had today.
First he had an EKG. Landon is very ticklish which makes putting the electrode stickers on lots of fun.
Then he had a chest x-ray. He was not impressed with all this doctor stuff.
And finally we seen his pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Finta.
She went over the results of the EKG and x-ray and she listened to Landon's heart. With her well tuned ears she can hear how well that patch is working and how much his valve is leaking. She told us Landon's valve is more noisy than it was last year and she thinks Landon will probably need to have his valve replaced sooner than we thought. He isn't in any immediate danger but it is deteriorating faster than she expected it would. We were hoping to make it til he was 16 to 18 years old. For now she is going to keep a close eye on it. She moved up his echo cardiogram that is usually done every 3 years. We just did one last year and he'll have another next year. At home we just have to keep an eye out that he's doesn't get worn out or out of breath more often than usual. Hopefully we'll make it at least a few more years before we have to do the surgery. At the moment Landon has no side effects from his leaky valve and is looking forward to getting into trouble as usual.
She went over the results of the EKG and x-ray and she listened to Landon's heart. With her well tuned ears she can hear how well that patch is working and how much his valve is leaking. She told us Landon's valve is more noisy than it was last year and she thinks Landon will probably need to have his valve replaced sooner than we thought. He isn't in any immediate danger but it is deteriorating faster than she expected it would. We were hoping to make it til he was 16 to 18 years old. For now she is going to keep a close eye on it. She moved up his echo cardiogram that is usually done every 3 years. We just did one last year and he'll have another next year. At home we just have to keep an eye out that he's doesn't get worn out or out of breath more often than usual. Hopefully we'll make it at least a few more years before we have to do the surgery. At the moment Landon has no side effects from his leaky valve and is looking forward to getting into trouble as usual.
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