Friday, March 11, 2011

Davis' Background Story

 Davis was diagnosed with Ebsteins at my 20 week ultrasound.  They noticed his heart was very large and sent me to a high risk doctor. That Dr. diagnosed the anomaly and referred me to the cardiology clinic at Children’s Hospital here in Denver. There, they were able to diagnose the severity (which means everything) of his anomaly, which was moderate. A normal heart should take up 1/3 of their chest cavity, and Davis' heart was taking up about 50%. The outlook was decent but had a lot of chance for a bleak turn. It was a very long 15 weeks, but we finally entered the somewhat safe zone where he was big enough and his lungs were mature enough to where they could pull him out if necessary. So we had a lot of hope and stayed very positive.  His heart was about 60-70% of his chest cavity, and the right side of his heart was not pumping any blood out through the pulmonary artery. But the left side was working great and the right valve (the defected one) was still squeezing well.  Our goal is to give him a shunt surgery and then go for the cone surgery once he’s older so he’s left with a “fixed” 4 chamber heart. The backup plan is to give him the 3 step surgery (Norwood 1 then Norwood 2 and then the Fontan operation) which would leave him with only the left side of his heart functioning. We’re told that kids with these surgeries do really well and can still play sports and act normally, but they won’t be Olympic athletes. Oh well, I can live with that. ;)  I’ve been told that structural defects are better than mental since structural can be fixed. I guess there is some truth to that. It’s just making it to surgery that has been so scary thus far.

5 comments:

Holly Schertz said...

I can't wait to meet you! Stay strong. You have amazing parents!

Love,
Aunt Holly

Anonymous said...

Have added this bogspot to MY FAVORITES so I can keep informed. Davis, you have amazing parents-

The Jones's

Anonymous said...

Davis you are such a little fighter,keep fighting and stay strong little guy.
The Proffitt's

Anonymous said...

Hang in there, being a heart mom myself I know exactly what you are going thru! Pray to god to be your rock- our little girl is doing wonderful you would never know she had open heart surgery at such a young age. My thoughts and prayers and with you!

Unknown said...

Love and continued prayers for 3 amazing people! Randy, Cathy, and Kris