VESPER
AGE: 10 months
DIAGNOSIS: Coarctation of the Aorta, ASD, VSD, Partial Anomolous Pulmonary drainage w/Pulmonary Vein stenosis, Bicuspid Aortic Valve
DIAGNOSED: 12 days old
Vesper’s mom Kira writes,
“We noticed some difficulties with Vesper’s breathing and brought her down to Sick kids emergency thinking it was likely just a cold. Unfortunately it was so much more. She had her first open heart surgery at 17days old to fix the CoA, ASD, VSD, she was only 2.5kg (5lbs 8oz). The surgery itself went well and finally brought her out to ICU but they couldn’t control the bleeding afterwards and had to call an emergency to re-open her chest again to get control. She was in ICU for a week.
We were hoping to have a few years before her pulmonary vein surgery but her breathing deteriorated again. She had two catheterizations but both were unsuccessful at re-opening her pulmonary vein so she had her second open heart surgery at 6 months old. She sailed through the surgery which moved the vein back to her heart where it was supposed to be but the vein wouldn’t stay open. A team at Texas Children’s hospital thought they could help. We flew to Houston for another Cath procedure, it was extremely long but successful at placing a stent to hold her pulmonary vein open. She will need to have the stent ballooned open periodically but is doing much much better now.
