Jacob's heart

Jacob was born with a heart murmur. They ran tests and determined he had a Congenital Heart Defect (CHD), more specifically, a PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosus), which is basically a valve opening that is supposed to close after you are born, and Jacob's didn't. They said it was a fairly common thing and most times they close on their own.

We followed up with a pediatric cardiologist when he was about a month old. They did an X-ray and an echocardiogram, and the news was good - his PDA had closed, then it was not so good - they found another CHD, known as a Ventricular Septum Defect (VSD). In simple terms, he has a hole in his heart. This hole is in the wall dividing the left and right ventricle, which delivers and receives blood to and from your lungs.

This picture shows what a VSD looks like.

According to the cardiologist, Jacob's hole is about 5mm in size. It doesn't sound big, but his heart isn't that big. So, it was described as a medium sized hole, it was small enough that we didn't have to rush into surgery immediately, and it was big enough that the cardiologist couldn't guarantee that it would close on its own.

So, since Jacob was eating well and seemed to be growing well, they sent us home with a wait and see approach. We have followed up with the cardiologist 4 times since then. They have repeated his X-rays and echos, and the hole is holding steady with no change. Sadly, because of the location of this hole (its close to the other valves in his heart,) they cannot fix it using the catheter method. They will have to do open heart surgery.

At our last appointment in mid-June, they again said there was no change and that surgery was more or less going to happen. They of course want to give it every chance to close on its own, so they said to go enjoy our summer and we would return in August to repeat the tests and then get the ball rolling on surgery. The issue being that the longer the hole is open, the more time the heart has to enlarge which could lead to far worse problems (one example - heart attack.) After discussing things with the cardiologist and our pediatrician (who is totally awesome by the way!), we decided that waiting was really pointless and the chance of it closing now after making no progress was extremely slim. Also, we wanted to try and get him home and recovering before the older kiddos went back to school and flu season started. (Germs, not good!)

So, we decided to go ahead and get the ball rolling with the surgery. I called and got everything scheduled. We have a surgical consultation scheduled on July, 22nd. We will meet with the surgeon, discuss everything with him, then go for Jacob's pre-operative work-up (blood work, x-rays, echo, etc.) Then we will take a tour of the hospital and see where everything is.

His surgery is scheduled for July, 26th. There is a possibility that he could get bumped if there is an emergency, but for the moment, Monday the 26th is the day. We have to be at the hospital at 7:30am. So I'm sure it won't start until at least 8:30am. I'm sure they will tell us during our consult.

I will try to update this as often as possible to keep everyone in the loop. I know a lot of people have already begun praying for Jacob, and I thank you for these prayers from the bottom of my heart.