My 4 Month-Old Son Had Open Heart Surgery

Have you ever woke up in the morning and thought to yourself "what next"? Well, this was a question that seemed to flood my mind often. After the birth of my child, born with Down Syndrome, there were still a lot of questions left unanswered. All I knew was what he seemed to be perfect, to me, my son looked healthy. That's all I was worried about.

The doctors on the other hand had other worries about my son's health. The doctors had scheduled an appointment for my son to have a cardio-gram ( a ultra sound of the heart ) performed to determine whether my sons heart was healthy or not. I soon came to find out that my son not only had a common birth defect; but, also a common heart defect among those of Down Syndrome.

Ventricular Septal Defect ( VSD ) is what the doctor called it. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said "VSD is a large opening between the ventricles, causing oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood to mix, resulting in low blood oxygen levels, an enlarged heart, and high blood pressure. This is fatal if not treated or corrected

I asked the doctor if my son had to have surgery, and he said "yes Open Heart Surgery." So now he has to have not only surgery; but Open Heart Surgery. "Now" I asked. The doctor asked if my son had been changing color, turning blue, had very rapid breathing , not eating, or would stop breathing while he was asleep. Those are warning signs of cardiac arrest the doctor told me. I told him no, my son has not had any problems like that. Then lets make the surgery around 4 months. We want to make sure he is strong enough. Says the doctor.

I went and met with the surgeon who would be performing the surgery on my 4 month old son in Orlando, Fl. He promised that he would treat Talan as one of his own. He also reassured us that the Ventricular Septal Defect repair is one of the easiest open heart surgeries to perform and he has performed this surgery many times.
The surgery is now scheduled for the month of July at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida.

We leave for St. Petersburg the day before the surgery to get a room at the Ronald McDonald house right by the hospital. If you or anyone you know is in a similar situation I recommend going there it's only $20 to stay there if your child is having surgery.

The day of the surgery we walk to the hospital. The staff showed us around, I met with the surgeon again. The nurses took blood from Talan,and then it was time for the surgery. An IV was put in. Talan was then strapped to a board so he could not move. We were then told that we would have to leave and wait for 4 - 6 hours.

We went back to our room and waited the nurse called us about 20 minutes into the surgery to tell us that the surgery has been started and Talan is doing well so far and that she would be calling us half way through the procedure for an update. About an hour and a half goes by and the nurse calls again she tells us Talan is doing great and the surgeon is half way through the procedure.

Finally the nurse calls again and the surgery was a success." Talan did great!" The nurse said. We went to the hospital to go see our baby boy. The nurse asked us if we wanted to see him uncovered or keep the covers on him. My husband and I looked at each other confused. "The incision looks pretty painful and he has a tube coming from inside the middle of his chest to drain out the fluid." "Oh, we said. Yes, keep him uncovered." We told the nurse.

We walked in and my little baby lay there with tubes and IVs coming out from everywhere on his little body. And his chest looked so bad, like it hurt so much. I felt so bad. And there was nothing I could do, I couldn't even hold him. Talan was on so much pain meds I am sure a that time he couldn't even feel it. He was passed out still from the anesthesia. We stayed and talked to him for a while in case he could hear us. We then left and bought him some helium balloons and a glow worm that sung lullabies.

When Talan woke up he noticed the balloons. We kept visiting him and he finally was released 6 days later. When we got home it was so terrible' Talan was in so much pain all he would do is cry and cry. Every time I would call the doctor they would tell me to give him Tylenol and Motrine; which I was, and it did seem to work very long. After a week everything seem to go back to normal.

Now 2 years later Talan is healthy and doesn't have to go back to his heart doctor until he is 4 years old. He is a very active and silly little boy and doesn't even know that had open heart surgery.