I’ll say this for all: as I ponder what’s it going to be like going forward now that I’m 70, I figure so long as I feel heartfelt and not heartless, I’ve won!
I am writing on this blog as the mom of an almost 40-year-old man who would never write on this blog, and who was born with Shones Complex (4+ malformations in the left side of his heart) and who has survived four open heart surgeries, including a mitral valve replacement, as well as three balloon valvuplasties, and I have lost track of the number of pacemakers he has had implanted--he is entirely pacemaker-dependent. Despite this history, his left ventricular function is, remarkably, normal, mostly due the remarkable work of his last surgeon, Pedro Del Nido in Children's Hospital, Boston. So what do I call his heart? When he was a child, in and out of hospitals, with chronic heart failure and pulmonar hypertension, I would think of Humpty Dumpty, who all the King's men and all the King's horses coudn't put back together again. Now, I think of his heart as simply a miracle; it has survived so much and is able to keep my beloved son alive on this earth.
I've referred to myself as "defective" which I thought hysterical. I don't think my condition falls into the CHD category but I enjoy reading
I’ll say this for all: as I ponder what’s it going to be like going forward now that I’m 70, I figure so long as I feel heartfelt and not heartless, I’ve won!
Ha! That's a good way to think of it.
I am writing on this blog as the mom of an almost 40-year-old man who would never write on this blog, and who was born with Shones Complex (4+ malformations in the left side of his heart) and who has survived four open heart surgeries, including a mitral valve replacement, as well as three balloon valvuplasties, and I have lost track of the number of pacemakers he has had implanted--he is entirely pacemaker-dependent. Despite this history, his left ventricular function is, remarkably, normal, mostly due the remarkable work of his last surgeon, Pedro Del Nido in Children's Hospital, Boston. So what do I call his heart? When he was a child, in and out of hospitals, with chronic heart failure and pulmonar hypertension, I would think of Humpty Dumpty, who all the King's men and all the King's horses coudn't put back together again. Now, I think of his heart as simply a miracle; it has survived so much and is able to keep my beloved son alive on this earth.
Thank you again for sharing your son's incredible story. Humpty Dumpty! I like it. What you've been through does indeed sound miraculous.
Wow!!!! That’s extraordinary! May he continue to thrive!