Over 35 with Young Kids

Well a couple of years of ignorance and denial have gone by, but yesterday the pediatric cardiologist gave us the bad news that Elena has the same heart defect as Emily.  It's mild so far, but Emily's started that way as well, so I'm figuring that some day we will be scheduling open heart surgery for Elena.

For those that don't know about this, Emily had surgery at age 6 to correct a supravalvular aortic stenosis.  It was detected when she was a baby and she went regularly for echocardiograms to monitor the defect.  It's a narrowing of the aorta (the major vessel carrying oxygenated blood away from the heart to the rest of the body) above the aortic valve.  It's obviously a genetic issue with this generation of our family as my sister has 2 out of 3 kids with the same issue, one had surgery 2 times, the other once.  All have come through well (Eventually, that is.  My sister's oldest nearly died after his first surgery, but we got a miracle from God!  He whizzed through his second surgery like a champ.), so if I had to pick a medical issue for my kids, I would pick this over cancer, etc., but still, we now have the weight on our shoulders again, waiting for the hammer to fall, again.

Elena has a murmur since birth, but up to this point, they only noted a mild pulmonary stenosis.  She did not have an echo last year due to her inability to cooperate.  She did a really good job lying on the exam table for the echo this time.  It helped that she got to watch Elmo on video while the tech was doing his job.  We have to go back in 6 months to see if anything has changed.  Surgery will be scheduled at such time that her pressure differential (before and after the valve) goes above a certain point and/or the left ventricle starts to show signs of thickening because it's working too hard to pump blood through the narrowed aorta.

So, although we've been through this and know that the outcome is very good, it's still hard to hear.

 
Thanks to Chris for my great siggy
           

(((Hugs Gina)))  I'm so sorry that Elena ended up with the same heart condition.  I know you have been through it before, but I'm sure that doesn't make this any easier on you and your family.  My thoughts and prayers are with Elena and your family.

My mom developed this condition as a result of an early childhood infection that affected her heart.  She lived with it for more than 50 years before having the corrective surgery! (Although frankly, she really pushed it.  She was scared of having the operation, and almost waited too long.)  She was actually misdiagnosed at first, they told her parents the "murmur" was benign, and her tendency to get short of breath was misattributed to asthma for years, when she actually had insufficient heart function.

She's like a new woman since her surgery.  GL!

Gwen

Thanks, Toni!