Hi, my name is Donna. I was born on June 7th, 2003 at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Before I was born, my mommy was told that I had a rear heart defect called,"Transposition of the Great Arteries". We don't know how that happened but we knew I was coming with complications. On the morning of June 7th, 2003 my mommy's water broke and she was only 34 weeks along with me. Papa came over and took my mommy to the hospital and she had to have an emergency C-Section done. The doctors had to make my mommy go to sleep while I was being born.
After I was born I was put on oxygen and had some heart tests done. Then they put me in a case type of bed and whelled me down so my mommy could see what looked like and held my little hand. Then they took me away from her and she cried. I was put into an ambulance and taken to Cardinal Glennon Childrens Hospital. Nana, Papa, and my daddy followed me to there and took a couple of pictures of me for my mommy and my daddy had to sign some papers. Once I was settled in a bed in N.I.C.U., they went back to the other hospital where my mommy was at to let her know I was ok so far. Nana and Papa came up to see me the next three nights to check on me to see how I was doing for me mommy. Then, they went to the other hospital to see how my mommy was recovering. My mommy cried everyday for me to be with her.
When my mommy was able to leave the hospital where she was at, she didn't go home. She had the hospitals set up a cab for her and daddy to take her straight to me. My mommy was put in a wheel chair and my daddy pushed her all the way into my room to see me. She cried more. A few weeks later the doctors told my mommy that I had to have an operation to close a large outer hole in my heart called a "PDA". The following day my parents waited in the operation waiting room for updates on me during that surgery. Once the doctor was done, he went to tell my mommy that I was doing great and came through the heart surgry fine. I was being put back into the N.I.C.U. to recover and rest.
A couple of weeks went by and the doctors had to do a heart test on me and had my parents come up to be with me again. This test was called a Cardio-Cath. This test is done by putting dye in my heart to see how my heart is working so the doctors can decides how to do my next heart surgery. This test took about three hours long and they had to put me to sleep and stuff. While the doctor was finishing up the test, some of my blood went into his eye. The hospital had to have my mommy sign a paper so the hospital could have my blood tested to make sure it was clean. The tests went well. |
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After my Cardio-Cath, the doctors had to talk to my mommy about the next heart surgery. They needed to let her know that the heart surgery was schedualed for the next day. They needed to put a band over the large hole inside of my heart and put some kind of patch to redirect the blood flow in my heart to help it function better. So like the first surgery, my parents waited for updates on me and waited to talk to the doctor to see if I was ok. I pulled through my second heart surgery fine and was put in P.I.C.U. for recovery. a few days later they was trying to ween me off the breathing machine I was on since birth. The first attempt failed. I was off for a few hours and put right back on. The second time i was off for twelve hours. Around the same time my mommy comes to visit me, I started to get really tired and upset because of the oxygen mask was poking my eye. My oxygen level kept going down. They kicked my mommy out of my room three times. She got upset and started to cry. Nana was upset and crying alot too. The breathing tub was put back in. The third time they weened me slower and I finally got to keep it out of my throat. After I was off the machine for 24 hours, they sent me to another floor. The floor was called TCU North2. I was there for a few months. Everyday I had to have medication given to me and tests to see if my medicane needed to be changed. The longer I was in the hospital the more they found wrong with me. Not only do I have a rare heart condition, but I have three spleens, I have diabeties insipadis (water diabeties),my kidneys are fused to one side and is working as one kidney, my intestines was moel-rotaited, my liver is enlarged due to heart problems, and I am missing the development part of my brain which will cause more problems in the future for me. In the beginning of October I had another surgery. This time it wasn't on my heart. The next surgery was on my intestines and to put a g-button in my stomach to help feed me better than with the tub inmy nose that I kept pulling out. |
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