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Benjamin |
When Ben turned three he was diagnosed as having autism. The next year and a half was spent in intensive behavior modification which was successful. Although Ben is not "normal", he has made great strides in overcoming this neurological condition.
Ben was very healthy and seldom needed to go to the doctor once he turned four. He went almost an entire year, from age four to five, without going to the pediatrician. Therefore, his heart, which we thought was perfectly fine, was not listened to.
During this time, we gave birth to our third child . When Matt was ten days old, he was diagnosed with HLHS (click here for Matt's portrait). Two weeks after returning home with Matt from his first surgery, Ben caught a cold. Not wanting Matthew to catch this, I decided it was time for Ben to see the pediatrician (the same one who discovered Matt's heart murmur). When he listened to Ben's heart, he looked at me and said, "I hate to tell you this, but I hear a murmur." He told us to take Ben along to Matt's next cardiology appointment and have it checked out.
The pediatric cardiologist did an echo. (At this point I was about to completely lose it!!) He then told us Ben had a subaortic membrane. The good news was that it did not need intervention at this time, and we would have it checked yearly.
Ben is now seven years old and in the first grade. We have had two yearly checks since the diagnosis and fortunately there has been no growth. At this point, it is a relatively minor subaortic membrane....but they are known to keep growing. We are still on yearly checks, but for now everything is fine.
