Cadence, January 2004

Cadence, finally at home

Cadence at two weeks

My first and only child, Cadence Michelle Poe ("Baby Tad", "Tadpole", and "Stinky Baby" are her nicknames, hahaha), was born on March 1, 2003 weighing 8 lbs. 7 oz. She was not diagnosed in utero with her heart condition and in the middle of the night after she was born the nurses noticed that something was wrong. At the time my husband had been deployed to Iraq (he is in the marine corps) and when the doctors came and told me that something was wrong and our daughter might need surgery I emailed my husband immediately. The next day Cadence was flown via helo to Duke University Medical Center.

That night 2 doctors came and explained that she had a very serious heart defect called Shone's Syndrome. They explained that she would need open heart surgery to correct her coarctation of the aorta. By this times I was devastated, shocked... I felt like everything was just crumbling all around me. My whole world was shattered. That night I emailed my husband and he got approval to fly back to the states, because at this point we did not know whether Cadence would make it or not. We put off the surgery for a couple of days so my husband could get back and meet our daughter before her surgery.

On March 5, 2003 Cadence had her surgery performed at Duke, and she spent the next month in the PICU trying to come off the ventilator and get well. After many failed trials off trying to come off the vent., she was finally able to and she was able to move out to the regular floor. For two weeks we tried to feed her with no luck. She just couldn't do it. She spent the next five months being fed through a nasogastric tube that we had to insert. Weight gain was slow, she threw up a lot and she was absolutely miserable. Those 5 months were hell and also a joy at the same time....hell for seeing our daughter go through this....a joy just to have her with us. Everyday was a blessing.....every moment was cherished.....her smile melted our hearts and we are so proud of her.

Cadence finally started eating on her own and has been doing great ever since. In December 2003 she did have to have balloon surgery to open her aorta again (performed at ECU), but now it is growing and she is doing so well that she has come off all her medicines! No heart medicine or anything.....just vitamins! We are so proud of her.....yes, she is a little spoiled....hahaha, but can you blame us? She is our pride and joy......we have been blessed to have such a happy, smart, beautiful little girl. She just celebrated her first birthday and she is crawling and walking and she is all over the place! :) Mommy and Daddy love you so much Cadence!!!

November, 2004 Update

On 10-13-04, Cadence had her 2nd open-heart surgery to repair subaortic stenosis and a VSD. Due to damage and trauma from the surgery, she had a 3rd surgery on 10-20-04 to place a pacemaker. She left the hospital 2 days later and she is doing wonderful! She is the most energetic kid I've ever seen!