Chloe

Chloe was born on Feb. 25th 2003, she seemed to be a healthy baby at 10-lbs 1oz and 21" long. We were released from the hospital the next day only to have to go back because she had jaundice and would have to be under the lights for 3 days. She had small problems throughout her first year of life, nothing that would jump out at me and say she had a heart problem. She had reflux, and sweat very badly throughout the night. She would also pinch me on my chest while I breast feed her, leaving bruises all over my right side of my chest, I didn't think anything of it. But it made sense to me after her 12-month check up when her pediatrician heard a murmur and wanted to schedule an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist.

So two weeks later, we go to the appointment and our whole life changed in an instant. I was in a daze and no matter what he said to me after the words "your daughter has multiple holes in her heart" I didn't hear anything else. We scheduled her next appointment and he gave me prescriptions to help her. I finally broke down and cried at the pharmacy because they didn't carry the Lasix, but they would have it for me the next day.

We went each month to the PC appointment so they could check her heart. They told me they would like to wait till she was 4 to 5 years old before they would do surgery and that most of the time the holes will close on their own. Six months later the holes wasn't getting any smaller, it was coming up on flu season, and they said they wanted her into surgery as soon as possible. So the next two weeks we drove back and forth to our PC's office in Tacoma, WA so they could perform tests on her and get her ready for surgery.

The night before surgery we drove up to Tacoma and stayed in the parent apartments that Mary Bridge Children's Hospital has for the ICU patients. We had to be at the hospital at five am so they could admit her and get her familiar with the doctors. After they finally came and took Chloe from us, we were escorted into a waiting room. We got a call on the phone every half hour with an update from a nurse who's main purpose in the operating room was to keep us informed about what was going on. Two hours later the PC came out to let us know everything went well and that the surgeon (Dr. Woods) was closing up and would be out to talk to us. Half an hour later Dr. Woods came out and took us into a room and explained in detail what he did and what we could expect when we first saw our baby. They also had an artist in the room drawing her heart step-by-step and they gave that to us to keep.

It was hard seeing her with all the tubes and feeling so helpless. The next day almost all of the tubes and IV's were gone. Later that day, I got to take her out and around the hospital and got to take her home three days later. The only complication she had is that she had water around heart and we decided to treat it non-invasively.

Chloe had surgery on 9/22/04 to close two holes in her upper chamber of her heart. She is now almost 7 yrs old and is full of life. Her next cardiology appointment isn't until 2012. We are so thankful for all of the great nurses and staff at Mary Bridge hospital, her surgeon Dr. Woods, her nurse practitioner Kayla Harvey, and her awesome cardiologist Dr. McClousky and their teams.