A Special Heart

Meet Everett.

He was born September 13, 2007 - the best day of my life. The following day was one of the worst. We found out that Everett was born with a congenital heart defect, a "special heart" as the doctors liked to call it. Specifically, he has L-Transposition of the Great Arteries, Double Inlet Left Ventricle, and Pulmonary Atresia. For those of you who are not Pediatric Cardiologists, this basically means blood was not getting to the lungs before going out the rest of his body. The treatment for his condition is a three step process called the Fontan Procedure. This separates the pulmonary circulation (to the lungs) from the systemic circulation (to the body). This site has some good information if your interested in learning more.

Everett had his first open heart surgery when he was 11 days old. The second at four months. All things considered, he's doing great. He is growing a normal rate (heart babies tend to be smaller) and right on schedule with all of the typical child development landmarks. After meeting him, people are amazed that this very active, very vocal kid has any kind of medical condition. He's tough, he's sweet, he's my little boy.

The third and hopefully final surgery is coming up this Wednesday. We're getting up early Tuesday morning and driving to Dallas where he has pre-op appointments all day. I'll be updating you here throughout the entire process of surgery and recovery.