Little Zippers

On 10/09/2008, a few hours after he was born; Jackson was diagnosed with DILV, CoA, TGA, VSD, ASD, PS, Straddling Right Atrioventricular Valve and Hypoplastic Right Ventricle. I was shocked because all of my ultrasounds were normal.

 Jackson's CHOC transport team came to the rescue just in time to stabilize him and rush him to the hospital.. I was discharged a few hours behind them and went home to pull myself together.

 The following day I met up with my Father, Husband, and Dr.Chang (Chief of Cardiology) to go over Jackson's condition and schedule him for surgery.

 Our little rock star had surgery 3 days later. A coarctation repair was done and a PA band put in place by Dr.Gates; it was a total success! He recovered well but we had a hard time getting him to eat again. He was discharged 9 days post-op.

 Jack did well up until New Years, at which point went back to CHOC for the Glenn and an Atrial Septectomy; another successful surgery performed by Dr.Gates. Unfortunately, a day or so post-op he developed Chylothorax so we had to stay in the hospital a little longer than last time; 11 days.

 Since recovering from the Glenn Jackson has been thriving, he is now 8mo old and is in the 75th percentile weight and the 100th percentile height. I have to give Jackson's cardiologist and the nutrition experts at CHOC a lot of credit. I couldn't have known what to do if it wasn't for all of the valuable time they spent working with us to make sure we could make it on our own.

 Jackson is not a candidate for the switch procedure because the Straddling Right Atrioventricular Valve complicates his Transposition.

His cardiologist is confident however that if all of his surgeries go well and any complications are caught early enough he may live a relatively normal life and reach adulthood.