Congenital Heart Awareness week 7-12th

Please visit this link for pictures & stories of other heart children\adults.

http://pinterest.com/ruth_h/the-faces-of-chd-congenital-heart-awareness-week-f/

Next week is Congenital Heart Awareness week, so in honor of this i thought i would do a little post on here about my sweet little heart baby.
Megan is not really a baby anymore she is almost 8 years old. I found out Megan had a heart defect when i was about 5 months pregnant with her and tayler. I was sent to many Dr's but we ended up with a wonderful Doctor named Dr. Oshiro .We saw him every month until the twins were born. Megan has had 2 heart surgeries one when she was 11 months old to close the two holes in her heart, and the second in November of 2010 to do an ablation on her heart to repair her Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome: A condition caused by an abnormality in the electrical system of the heart which normally tells the heart muscle when to contract. In Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome, there is an extra electrical connection inside the heart that acts as a short circuit, causing the heart to beat too rapidly and sometimes in an irregular manner. The syndrome can be life threatening although this is unusual.WPW can be treated by destroying the short circuit using a technique termed radio frequency catheter ablation in which wires are placed in different places in the heart until the short circuit is found and can be destroyed with radio waves.WPW involves preexisting. Part of the ventricle receives premature electrical stimulation due to the presence of an accessory pathway (the short circuit) which is not subject to the normal delay at the atrioventricular node. Wolff-Parkinson-White is written with hyphens because the syndrome was not discovered by a Dr. Wolff Parkinson White but by three doctors: Louis Wolff, Sir John Parkinson, and Paul Dudley White. Unfortunately they were not able to do the ablation because her heart is still too small and it was more of a risk to damage the patch they used to fix her hole on her heart when she was a baby. So we go in every 6 months for testing and ekg's to see how she is doing, they are saying they think it will be about when she is 13 or so they will do the surgery.
(This picture below was Megan after her first heart surgery)
Megan loves Primary Children's Hospital. She has had every surgery she has ever had down there, heart surgeries, tonsils & adenoids, & tubes. The staff is super friendly and make Megan feel so comfortable every time. And its a bonus that every time she gets to pick a toy before she goes home:)

Picture from Megan's surgery in 2010
Oh ya and Megan has even had her teeth pulled at primarys lol. When they had to incubate meg for her surgery her two front top teeth were loose so they had the dentist there pull them out so she didn't get them knocked out or swallow them. So the tooth fairy visited her in the hospital & a few nurses and Dr's gave her money as well.

For awhile megan was not allowed to do very much including, running or anything active for that matter. She still can't have pop and if she does is has to be clear like sprite. But last time we went she was cleared to do p.e at school again or anything active in moderation. So she has had a blast doing all the above.

Cheerleeding!!

Megan at her last apt. she drew the Dr. a picture and the Dr. asked meg if she could hang it on the wall with all the rest that she loved.

She played softball!!

And one of the best things that has came from megan having congenital heart disease is that every year she gets to go to http://camphawkins.org/ a camp for heart kids and their siblings. She loves it and can't wait to go back in June.

I am so grateful that there are so many other heart moms out there who share their stories that i feel i can talk to or relate to. It's hard watching your kids go through this but wonderful knowing that your not alone.