Benjamin (2005)

In May 2000, while pregnant with my second child, I experienced a painful cramping in my right side that would not go away. It felt exactly like a miscarriage I had experienced only months earlier. My doctor was certain I wasn't losing the baby, but sent me on to Sioux Falls, SD, so that they could determine exactly what my pain was and why. While at the hospital, I was given an ultrasound which found that my baby had a heart defect. My husband and I were shocked. An amnio revealed that our baby did not have Down's Syndrome. Thus began many trips to the doctor to make sure the baby was doing fine.

On August 3, 2000, our beautiful son, Benjamin, weighing in at 6 lbs, was born. Once born, our pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Sami, could get a good look at little Ben's heart. It was late in the evening when I finally got a chance to speak to Dr. Sami and learn of all Ben's heart complications. He had a large ASD, otherwise known as common atrium, a small VSD, split mitral valve, mild pulmonary stenosis, interrupted IVC, and dextrocardia. He would need corrective surgery before one year of age.

On his fifth day in the hospital, and after many tries to get Benjamin to nurse, he was spitting green stuff up. The doctors did many hours of tests that resulted in finding mal-rotation of the bowels. Within minutes after their findings, my little boy and I were on an airplane to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for surgery to correct this new problem. The surgery took an hour and Ben spent two weeks in Children's before finally being able to come home with an NG tube for additional feeding. Thankfully he only had the NG tube in for a couple of weeks.

Benjamin (2004)

When Ben was 6 months old, Dr. Sami (Ben's P.C.) felt Ben wasn't gaining weight any more so it was time to schedule heart surgery. We returned to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis in February 2001, where Ben would have heart surgery performed by Dr. Overman. One week after surgery it was determined Benjamin had heart block from the surgery and would need a pacemaker. So Ben went back into surgery for the placement of a pacemaker and after another week he was able to come home.

We would visit Ben's pc and pacemaker doctor every 6 mos. This past February, 2004, his pc said that the baffle that was built in his heart during his surgery was narrowing and he would need a heart cath to determine if it was in fact narrowing, and if so, if a balloon or stent would be used. We traveled to Children's Hospital in Omaha, NE in May to have Dr. Amin do the heart cath. Dr. Amin, however, was not able to do the ballooning. Now we are waiting to schedule Ben's second heart surgery at Omaha Children's.

We are so thankful for all the wonderful doctors and nurses who have cared for Benjamin. Each one is truly a gift from God. We are so blessed to have Benjamin in our lives.

August 2004 Update

On July 14, 2004 Benjamin had his second heart surgery and everything went really well. The surgeons replaced his old baffle which was made from Benjamin's own heart tissue with one that is made of Gore-Tex. Also at the time before surgery the doctors discovered that Ben's pacemaker quit working some time ago and his heart was enlarged, so during surgery they also replaced the pacemaker and all of the leads. Surgery was on a Wednesday and we were at home with Ben on Sunday night, what a miracle.

Ben was not the ideal patient (but under the circumstances who would be), but we are so proud of him and now a month later he is back to normal and has all of his energy back. Once again we must thank God for being with us and guiding us through this stressful time and we must thank him for the awesome gift of talent and knowledge that he gave to all of the doctors, surgeons and nurses.