I label this post "Broken Hearts" because that is how my heart feels, and well... Logan's heart is literally broken.
Look at this SWEET, SWEET baby boy. How can a baby look so PERFECT and yet have something major going wrong inside his little body.
Here is where Logan's Heart Story begins:
Logan's pediatrician Dr. Lei wanted to see Logan on Tuesday (the 25th) to check his biliruben levels since he was borderline jaundice when we left the hospital. So Brad and I packed up all the kids and we went to the doctor. When Dr. Lei got his stethescope out to listen to Logan's heart he listened a lot longer than normal. He was really calm and matter of fact and said Logan had a heart murmur. He explained maybe why he didn't hear the heart murmur in the hospital (nobody did). But he didn't seem too worried... or so we thought. He had his nurse call up to Primary Childrens to get us an appointment with a cardiologist to have an Echo done. They couldn't get us in until Thursday so Dr. Lei asked us to come back to see him again on Wednesday. We left a little concerned, but as we talked to people and read things on the internet about how common heart murmurs were we weren't too worried.
We went back to Dr. Lei on Wednesday and this time when he listened to Logan's heart I could see in his face that something wasn't right. He explained that his heart murmur was a lot louder than most and you could hear it on the right side of his chest and in his back. He said we would know more after the Echo the next day. After the doctor left I immediately started crying and Brad jumped into action and said we need to give Logan a blessing. So we left the dr's office and went straight to my parents house where Brad and my dad gave Logan a blessing. Brad blessed him that he would live a long life and that the doctors would be guided in knowing how to help him. I still keep reminding myself of this blessing when I am looking for comfort. We both had a really hard night that night- it was the first of many nights of crying myself to sleep.
Thursday the 27th we spent 7 hours at Primary Children's Medical Center. After an Echo, EKG, X-rays and lots and lots of waiting we finally met with our cardiologist Dr. Mack. He checked Logan out and kept asking me all sorts of questions. The answer was NO to almost everything... didn't everyone see I had a perfectly healthy little boy that at 6 days old already weighed more than he did when he was born. I was sure Dr. Mack was going to tell us that Logan was okay and he just had a trivial heart murmur. Not so lucky. He started out easy and explained the anatomy of the heart. He started with the easy stuff first... Logan has what they call a VSD- ventricular septal defect which is a hole between his right and left ventricle. This is the most common CHD (congenital heart defect) and is easily repaired or a lot of times heals on its own... but Logan's is a little different he goes on to say. Logan's VSD is quite large and then his tricuspid valve isn't in the right place. Then to complicate matters further his right ventricle is smaller than is should be, and the left side of his heart is enlarged. I didn't hear much after that because I was crying so hard. How could so many things have gone wrong. Was it something I did in the pregnancy... Dr. Mack assured me that is was nothing I did and they don't know what causes CHD... but wow- Logan sure got the short end of that stick.
So his diagnosis: Hypoplastic Right Heart, VSD, and an Overriding Tricuspid Valve.
So what to do now... Dr. Mack said he was going to meet with the team of cardiologists and surgeons the following Wednesday to decide what would be the best coarse of care for Logan and then he would call us and let us know what they all decided on as a team.
Logan's pediatrician Dr. Lei wanted to see Logan on Tuesday (the 25th) to check his biliruben levels since he was borderline jaundice when we left the hospital. So Brad and I packed up all the kids and we went to the doctor. When Dr. Lei got his stethescope out to listen to Logan's heart he listened a lot longer than normal. He was really calm and matter of fact and said Logan had a heart murmur. He explained maybe why he didn't hear the heart murmur in the hospital (nobody did). But he didn't seem too worried... or so we thought. He had his nurse call up to Primary Childrens to get us an appointment with a cardiologist to have an Echo done. They couldn't get us in until Thursday so Dr. Lei asked us to come back to see him again on Wednesday. We left a little concerned, but as we talked to people and read things on the internet about how common heart murmurs were we weren't too worried.
We went back to Dr. Lei on Wednesday and this time when he listened to Logan's heart I could see in his face that something wasn't right. He explained that his heart murmur was a lot louder than most and you could hear it on the right side of his chest and in his back. He said we would know more after the Echo the next day. After the doctor left I immediately started crying and Brad jumped into action and said we need to give Logan a blessing. So we left the dr's office and went straight to my parents house where Brad and my dad gave Logan a blessing. Brad blessed him that he would live a long life and that the doctors would be guided in knowing how to help him. I still keep reminding myself of this blessing when I am looking for comfort. We both had a really hard night that night- it was the first of many nights of crying myself to sleep.
Thursday the 27th we spent 7 hours at Primary Children's Medical Center. After an Echo, EKG, X-rays and lots and lots of waiting we finally met with our cardiologist Dr. Mack. He checked Logan out and kept asking me all sorts of questions. The answer was NO to almost everything... didn't everyone see I had a perfectly healthy little boy that at 6 days old already weighed more than he did when he was born. I was sure Dr. Mack was going to tell us that Logan was okay and he just had a trivial heart murmur. Not so lucky. He started out easy and explained the anatomy of the heart. He started with the easy stuff first... Logan has what they call a VSD- ventricular septal defect which is a hole between his right and left ventricle. This is the most common CHD (congenital heart defect) and is easily repaired or a lot of times heals on its own... but Logan's is a little different he goes on to say. Logan's VSD is quite large and then his tricuspid valve isn't in the right place. Then to complicate matters further his right ventricle is smaller than is should be, and the left side of his heart is enlarged. I didn't hear much after that because I was crying so hard. How could so many things have gone wrong. Was it something I did in the pregnancy... Dr. Mack assured me that is was nothing I did and they don't know what causes CHD... but wow- Logan sure got the short end of that stick.
So his diagnosis: Hypoplastic Right Heart, VSD, and an Overriding Tricuspid Valve.
So what to do now... Dr. Mack said he was going to meet with the team of cardiologists and surgeons the following Wednesday to decide what would be the best coarse of care for Logan and then he would call us and let us know what they all decided on as a team.
I got the phone call Wednesday morning June 2nd from Dr. Mack that the team of doctor's had all agreed that the first thing that needed to be done was a surgery called Pulmonary Artery Banding. I had to sit down when I talked to him to catch my breath... a few things caught me off guard. The first thing being his mention of the FIRST surgery we needed to do was this PA Band... that means there is going to be more than one surgery and that they wanted to do it right away- like the next week. He explained that this wouldn't fix his heart it was just a procedure that would protect his lungs from being damaged as they tried to let Logan grow older and stronger before they did a more major surgery. He said a lady from the surgical scheduling would call me in the next 2 days to schedule the surgery and we would go from there. Go from where... what other surgery's would there be- how major was this surgery... my mind was racing, I was trying not to panic. My baby was going to have heart surgery at 2 weeks old...
1 comments:
Heidi, I am so sorry for little Logan's heart issues. How scary for your little family to have been going through this. Thankfully your husband was guided in giving Logan a beautiful blessing.
Post a Comment