When Mathew was born his father was in the Marine Corp. stationed in California. At his six week checkup his pediatrician found a heart murmur. They believed he had a hole in his heart and referred him to Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. He was put on medication to help control his symptoms but by the time he was 4 months old he was suffering from heart failure. They did a heart catherization and found that he had a Patent Ductus Arteriosis. The Ductus Arteriosis is an artery that bypasses the blood to the lungs before birth. It is suppose to close on its own when the baby is born and starts using the lungs. They told us it would be a relatively easy operation to tie off this artery and Mathew would be perfectly normal. What a relief this was after thinking he had a hole in his heart! But after the surgery instead of getting better, Mathew became worse. Two and a half weeks went by until the doctors finally decided to do another heart catherization to find out why he was deteriorating. They found the PDA was still open. Mathew was then sent to the University of San Diego where they performed immediate surgery and found that the Naval Hospital had tied off his left pulmonary artery instead of the PDA. They closed the PDA and tried to save his left pulmonary artery but were unsuccessful. The use of Mathew's left lung was gone forever. Mathew's father left the Marine Corp as soon as his release date came and we moved back to Iowa. In the mean time, Mathew developed a leaky Mitral Valve. When he was 21 months old he received an artificial Mitral Valve at the University of Iowa. He did very well with this valve for many years. In the summer of '96 it was decided that he had outgrown this valve and needed a larger one. It is very hard to replace a small valve with a larger valve but the surgery went very well. But Mathew didn't improve. Instead he developed an atrial automatic tachycardia (abnormal heartbeat) which is being controlled by medicine. He is also suffering from chronic pulmonary hypertension which is mainly caused from the lost left pulmonary artery and he has developed another leaky valve. He is very underweight and small for his age and has little interest in eating so now he will be hooked up at night to a pump that will feed him. Fortunately this will be done at home. We have come to the point where the doctors aren't sure what the next step is but we take one day at a time and know with much prayer Mathew will get through this too.
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