Annual checkups are an important part of maintaining Nathan’s heart and back health. Recently, Bryan, daughter Michelle, and I traveled with Nathan to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans to see how his heart looks four years after surgery to correct Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (PAPVR), a problem associated with his scimitar syndrome.
The echocardiogram seems [...]
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Today’s Good Morning America covered an interesting story of a man with situs inversus (organs on the opposite side). Jack Eigel lived with this condition just fine until he required a heart transplant in his early 50s. The space for his new heart would be shaped differently, complicating an already difficult surgical procedure.
This interests me [...]
Back in April, I attached this photo to a post I wrote about Dr. Edward Bove (the surgeon who performed our Nathan’s surgery in 2006). I learned from Phil Eppard, that the little fella’ pictured with Dr. Bove is Phil’s son, Aidan. The photo was taken in 2005 after Aidan’s first heart surgery and has [...]
Here is an excerpt from an Oprah program that ran today.
In case you missed this Oprah episode, watch as Dr. Oz explains why “the stem cell debate is dead.”
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If your child is old enough to have good communication skills, you may wonder how much information you should share with him about his congenital heart defect. As Bryan and I discovered in our journey with our son, Nathan, this can be a delicate dance. Not enough information can catch a child off-guard when tests [...]
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