J.,
My son will be 10 months old on the 29th. He was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. Basically it has 4 different components but one being a large VSD. He was diagnosed when he was just 3 days old and was sent home on an Apnea/heart monitor. He saw the cardiologist regularly and when he went in at 3 months they decided to schedule a consult for us with a surgeon at St. Josephs. We met with Dr. Paul Chai and we absolutely loved him and his very personal as well as perfessional demeaner. Dr. Chai wanted to schedule surgery for as soon as possible and we ended up leaving there with a surgery date of May 2nd.
My son was a few days over 4 months on May 2nd when he had his open-heart surgery. Thankfully when they went in there his CHD (congenital heart defect) wasn't nearly as complex as they originally thought and they ended up patching his large VSD and stitching up several smaller holes. He was released from St. Josephs after 4 days and came home with a residual VSD, which he still has. They don't suspect he'll need any further surgeries however he still has a VSD and has to see the cardiologist periodically.
This was a very frightening experience but St. Josephs is a wonderful hospital and these kind of repairs are very common, more so than you'd think. Nothing anyone will say can completely easy your nerves but just trust that everything will be okay, because it will! The 4 days my son was in the hospital was very hard. He was uncomfortable and seeing him with 2 IVs, central line, chest tube, pacer wires and other random equitment attached to him was scary. Once everything was done and 8 weeks had lapsed and we were able to pick him up under his arms again, everything was back to normal for us!
If you need a source of moral support or would like to speak with someone about what you are going through feel free to email me! I have plenty of pictures of my son's scar, which may impress you... it's nearly invisable at just 5 months post op! I also have pictures of his hospital stay but I'd rather not share those with you because they look a lot worse than the situation actually was. I can't even bare to look at them without crying.
God bless you and your son! Keep praying, God preforms miracles!! I pray every night that he'll continue to keep my son healthy and safe and close up his residual VSD. :)
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Take Care!
H.