Jake March Pictures

Jake in his camo and having fun in his Bumbo Chair.

Feb. 28th Jake Update

Jake had an appointment with Dr. Grenier today and she noted that he seems to be growing well and is in excellent shape. She is thinking that Jake's defect can most likely be repaired sometime between the ages of 2 and 3.

Also, we got some information from Dr. Grenier during our first appointment that a Dr. Vidu Garg, a research cardiologist and professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas has tied atrial septal defects to a specific gene mutation and is saying that there could be as high as a 30% chance that these types of defects are passed on. He has an interesting website at: http://hamon.swmed.edu/~garglab/index.html.

I have been able to talk with Dr. Garg and explain our situation and he would like Jake and I to be part of his research. We will be providing him with some saliva samples for DNA testing. Now that they have linked some of these types of defects to specific genes there is a chance for a cure down the road.

We have also come in contact with an organization out of Houston called, "It's My Heart". Their website is: http://www.itsmyheart.org/. It's an organization of families and parents that have kids who have or have gone through a cogential heart defect. There are some really cool stories and interesting people involved with this organization and hopefully we can in some way help others who have been through or are going through the experience of having a cogenital heart defect.

Wed. Feb. 14th Jake Update

Today we met with Dr. Laura Grenier, Chief of Cardiology at Texas Children's in the Woodlands today and got some relatively good news. It turns out that Jake not only looks like me in many ways but also has the identical congenital heart defect that I had. The good news is that out of the four major congential heart defects this is the only one that can be completely repaired through open heart surgery. Most of the time people can expect to live a full normal life with no restrictions after the repair of this type of defect.

The defect is called an ostium primum atrial septal defect which put simply is a hole between the two upper chambers (the atrium) of the heart. Basically, oxygenated blood that is being pumped out to the rest of the body by the left ventricle (LV) enters into the right atrium (RA) through the hole and mixes with blood un-oxygenated blood going out to the lungs. This causes extra pressure on the lungs resulting in extra work for the lungs and and enlargement of the right side of the heart. As the heart gets larger and time goes on these conditions are magnified which causes significant cardiovascular overload with other complications.

Normal Heart on the left and Heart with Atrial Septal Defect on the right.

During the open heart surgery repair, the hole is covered up with a patch from a section of the pericardium, the sac which covers the heart. The only difference between the picture of the heart with the defect above and Jake's is that Jake's ostium primum defect is slightly lower than the one shown and this causes a cleft in the mitral valve. The three triangular shaped leafets at the entrance of the aorta form the mitral valve. Basically the function of the mitral valve is to act as a check valve to prevent blood from flowing back into the left ventricle after entering into the aorta. This cleft is repaired simply by putting a stich near the portion of the cleft to bring the leafets together and prevent the mentioned reverse blood flow.

The severity of the defect depends on the size of the hole and Jake's is relatively large (10mm) so Dr. Grenier is recommending that we keep an eye on things and if Jake is doing well that we can wait to repair the defect. Most likely it will be before he starts school. We spent most of the afternoon with Dr. Grenier as she answered our questions and even performed another echocardiogram with us to confirm her initial diagnosis.

The heart is actually a better pump after the repair and Jake should be able to tell a difference in his cardiovascular fitness as I did. We are also blessed to be in Houston where some of the world's best cardiac surgeons successfully complete these types of repairs every day.

We are thankful for all the prayers and support we have had over the past few weeks and we will do our best to let this totally be in God's hands. We will pray for a miracle that God will just close the hole but if not we know without a doubt that through this experience God wants both Jake and I to have a cool story regarding the relatively large scars on our chests and tell everyone how it's more than just a patch that's covered and filled the hole in both of our hearts. We all have some type of hole in our heart and it's just that some people aren't aware of the hole or choose to deny their hole. Sometimes it's only when life's difficulties come that people see their hole and come to the conclusion that they have rely on God and others like family and friends because they can't do it on their own. We are thankful for this experience because it will never let us forget those facts. How interesting that today Feb. 14th, 2007 is also National Cogenital Heart Defect Awareness Day.

Feb 12th Jake Update

Monday Feb. 12th we got news that Jake's test results showed that a congenital heart defect was present. We were told the extent of the defect would only be explained to us by the cardiologist but that it did involve a hole in the heart similar to the condition that I had. Usually, it takes 6 months to get into to see Dr. Laura Grenier, the Chief of Cardiology at Texas Children's in the Woodlands but we were fortunate to get an appointment Wednesday afternoon.

Jake's First Doctor Appointment

I have not been sucessful in keeping the blog updated but much has happened during the past month along with Amy and I getting used to this parenthood stuff. I hope to do better in keeping the blog current with Jake updates and pictures. To start with I decided that it would be more appropriate to make this a more family oreinted web page so I have modified a few things and changed the template.

To begin with I will start with Jake's first doctor's appointment. During the examination our pediatrician caught a heart murmur in Jake. This is quite normal in infants but she recommended that Jake go in later during the week for an echocardiogram, EKG, and chest xray. 10 years ago I began a similar path during a routine examination during my sophomore year at USMMA. I was getting ready to begin the second half of my sea year and a physician's assistant caught a slight heart murmur and recommended I go in for further testing. This path eventually led to the finding of a cogenital heart defect and a sucessful open heart surgery to correct the defect. Little did we know this past Feb. how similar mine and Jake's path were about to be.

Jake was perfect for the echocardiogram and actually slept through most of it. The tough part about the echo is that nothing can be said about the test until a cardiologist takes a look at the results. I had a funny feeling regarding what I saw during the test, but we hoped and prayed that things would be fine.