Robertson Tribe Updates

Our one and only son D had a routine check up today with his pediatric cardiologist. We found out at 6 months of age that our little guy has a very large hole in his heart (not small, medium, or large, but very large), also known as an ASD or atrial septal defect. We knew it will require medical intervention around the age of 4 or 5 and with an international move looming on the horizon we needed to make decisions about his care.

We spent some time today creating a tentative time table for the upcoming procedure, deciding if we should move up the schedule for surgery, and discussing all our options. We actually have two options to consider that will take care of the issue. The first one is the standard of care for the last 30-40 years and that is open heart surgery. It is effective and a “known”. The second option is a relatively new procedure (10 years or so) that is less invasive and attaches a device to the wall and “plugs” the hole. The recovery from this is much faster and is easier on David. We are pursuing this second option.
After taking a close look at his heart, the doctor determined that we should do the procedure sooner rather than later. We have a tentative plan as of today but the final decision can’t be made until we confer with the surgeon. He must determine of D is a viable candidate for the second procedure. So now we wait.
As we stood in that room and I watched his heart on the monitor, I wasn’t able to avoid reality any longer and pretend D is as healthy as our other children. As I looked at the screen, I could see the right side of his heart is three times larger than the other side and looks like a giant balloon. I could see the blood rushing backwards, not moving to where it should. I could hear the doctor tell me that only 30% of his blood is making it to its destination, and 70 percent is returning to his lungs because of his inefficient heart. YIKES!No, my son is not healthy. No, I can not avoid it any longer. His little body is broken and it must be fixed.“Father God, hear the prayer of this scared Mama and give us all the courage to face what is ahead”.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.