Our Journey Begins

Our story begins early on March 3rd.  About 1:00 in the morning the Easton's nurse was supposed to bring him to me for a feeding.  She came to inform me that while doing the normal 24 hour pku she found that his oxygen levels were low and that they had put him under an oxygen hood.  She had called the pediatrician on call.  I went down to the nursery and when I got there, the pediatrician had called the neonatalogist.  She said that they may have to take him to the NICU pending his findings.  When he came up he said they would take him down to the NICU but he originally thought pulmonary hypertension.  I went back to my room to shower and then go down to the NICU to be with Easton,  as I was getting ready to leave, the Dr. came in and said that Easton has what is called Tetralogy of Fallott (TOF).  It was very amazing to me that in that 20 minute window they had already called in the pediatric cardiologist and were able to diagnose. 

Tetralogy of Fallott is a birth defect that the heart doesn't form properly.  Easton has a hole between the bottom two chambers of his heart, and his valve to the 1st  upper chamber is narrow.  This then makes the blood flow not get to where it needs to properly to the rest of the body to get the oxygen it needs.    They ran some other test, and all other organs are fine.  Just his heart,  so from the outside he looks just like a normal little boy. 

On Monday, he will have a Cardiac Cath done, which they will take and put a little camera in and take pictures of his heart and lungs so they know exactly what they will need to repair.  At this point, they are planning on putting in a shunt to direct the blood to where it needs to go.   Then he will have another surgery when he is 6 to 8 months old he will have another surgery to repair the heart.  We need to let him get a little bigger so that his heart is easier to work on. 

After the 1st procedure is done, it will be about a 2 to 4 week healing time before we are able to bring him home.  He will be just like any other baby, just a little different in color.  After he has his second surgery at around 6 months,  he will have a few more surgery's throughout his life to replace the valve and more doctors visits. 

The Doctors have all been very positive.  They say he will be like all other little boys and should have a normal life.  One of the cardiac nurses sons has the same thing and is a 16 year old soccer player.  So everything we have heard has been very encouraging. 

Once we bring him home from his first surgery, we will have to be very careful with Germs for the first 6 weeks and on, but the first 6 weeks will be very important, we will pretty well be homebound with very little visitation to our home.

We appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers.  Please continue to pray for us.  We will keep everyone updated.