CHD Awareness Week

February 7-14 is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week. This is a week that really means something in our family. Both Kyler and Caden have CHD's. We have been very blessed that Kyler's pulmonary valve stenosis was able to be fixed in a heart catheterization and he didn't have to have open heart surgery. But he needs to be monitored into adulthood to make sure his valve grows with him as he grows. Here are a couple photos of Kyler after his cath in June 2006, at 3 months old.




Caden's coarctation of the aorta is relatively minor in terms of heart defects. However, in combination with the right-sided diaphragmatic eventration and hypoplastic right lung, it made for a pretty scary situation with uncertain results. He had his heart/diaphragm surgery at 2 weeks of age.

This is Caden immediately following his surgery.


4 days after Caden's surgery, he had a pulmonary hypertensive crisis which caused cardiac arrest and his chest had to be emergently re-opened. Due to swelling, the doctors left it open for 3 more days before they closed it again. It's a pretty creepy thing to be able to look into your child's chest. I couldn't do it in person but I am now able to look at the pictures. In addition to leaving his chest open, they gave him drugs to keep him completely paralyzed. That was probably the hardest thing for me to see. When his eyes were open, they were vacant. Something you can't understand unless you've experienced it.


But today we have two boys who are amazingly healthy considering their heart defects.



1 in 100 babies born in the US are affected by CHD. To find out more about CHD, you can go to: http://www.itsmyheart.org/chd-information/chd-facts/ or http://chdbabies.blogspot.com/2009/08/chds.html. They both give lots of great information.

There is no cure for CHD, but with research and time, more and more children are getting a chance at a relatively normal life due to the amazing surgeries that are offered. If you know someone who works in cardiology, please thank them this week for all they do for kids with CHD and their families!

Greg & I with Caden's surgeon, Dr. Mohan Reddy, at LPCH on the day of Caden's surgery.