Day One 12/9/09

2:00 a.m.

The NICU nurses have been monitoring Hank's oxygen levels for some time now. Their initial concern was that because he had some fluid in his lungs he wasn't getting the oxygen he needed. By 2:00 a.m., around 6 hours after he was born, his lungs were clearing up, but he still was not getting enough oxygen in his blood. They came to our room to tell us they were going to run some tests on his heart.

3:30 a.m.

Dr. Ramirez came back to the room to tell us that Hank was stable, but they have diagnosed him with a congenital heart disease called "Transposition of the Great Arteries", or TGA. The two arteries leaving his heart are switched.



In a normal heart blood travels from the body to the heart. The heart pumps the blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen and then returns to the heart. Then the blood is pumped to the body to deliver the oxygen and returns to the heart and starts the process over again. A basic visual picture would be a figure 8. The heart would be in the middle of the 8, with the lungs on the top and the body on the bottom.

Hank has 2 separate circulatory systems. His blood travels from his body to his heart and back to his body. It also flows from his lungs to his heart back to his lungs. The oxygen poor blood and the oxygen rich blood never mix. A basic visual picture would be two separate circles.

We are told Hank needs to be life flighted to Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital in the medical center.

5 a.m.

An ambulance has arrived from CMHH and the transport team gets Hank ready for his trip to the medical center. The helicopter could not fly this morning because of the fog. Before we leave, we take Hank up to say goodbye to Samantha. By this time she has a room full of family for support. We leave The Woodlands around 6 a.m and arrive at CMHH around 6:40 a.m.

When we get to the medical center the docters run more tests to confirm what the docters in The Woodlands said.

7:45 a.m.

Dr. Balaguru meet with us in the waiting room. He did a great job of explaining to us what TGA is. He also told us that there were some other abnormalities in Hanks heart that were actually allowing some of the oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood to mix. They cannot perform a corrective surgery yet, because they want Hanks body and organs to mature to make sure his body can handle a major surgery. Dr. Balaguru told us he is going to do a procedure at 11 a.m. to make one of the holes allowing blood to mix in his heart bigger. This will keep Hank stable until he can have his corrective surgery. They will run a cathader up his umbilical cord into his heart an rip open the hole. The hole is in some kind of syptom.

9:30 a.m.

They did an ultrasound on his kidney, bladder, and brain. They said because he had heart abnormalities, there is a greater chance of some other abnormalities.

11:45 a.m.

Hank's cathader procedure starts. "God please take care of this precious baby, Amen." I meet with the anesthseologist before the procedure and he said it would last about 2 hrs. and he would come update me periodically.

1:15 p.m.

Dr. Balaguru came out and said everything went extremely well. I was getting worried because I did not receive any updates like they said. There was a feeling of relief that I can not explain and had never felt before when I heard him say everything was okay. I am already so in love with this little boy.

2:30 p.m.

Hanks ultra sound of his kidney, bladder, and brain came back normal.

3:15 p.m.

We meet with Dr. Newman, he is one of Hank's cardiologists. He said we will wait about 7-10 days before surgery. He also mentioned only 1% of babies have a congenital heart disease. He said if Hank's corrective surgery is successful, he will live a normal life. He will be able to play baseball, baseketball, golf, etc. They recommend staying away from contact sports though. Luckily, I have always been told football is not a contact sport, its a collision sport. So I think we're okay there.

journaled by Derric