Ethan

Ethan

Meet Ethan

“On November 28, 2011 we found out that my youngest son had a congenital heart defect. For the first 3 months of my sweet Ethan’s life he was very fussy (you could hardly put him down). He had projectile vomiting and had trouble eating. I took him to the doctor and told them that I thought he had acid reflux because my older son (who was heart healthy) had acid reflux and had many of the same symptoms. They put him on Zantac and sent us on our way. About a month later, his symptoms were even worse and I noticed that when he got upset he got blue around his lips. I got him an appointment to see his doctor on Monday after a really hard weekend crying and being extremely fussy. I thought that maybe they just needed to change his meds. My sister came with me and, after a long wait to see the doctor, he came in. I noticed that he was taking extra time listening to his heart. He said he heard a heart murmur but that it could be nothing. He wrote him a new script and said that he wanted me to schedule him for an upper GI xray and an echo. Then he said, Let’s just have the nurse check his blood oxygen level before you leave. We got down to peds and they did the test for 45 min trying to make him warm and trying not the let him move so they could get a good reading. They said a good reading was at least 94, but his never got above 82. They asked if the doctor told us we might be staying and I said no. They called up to talk to him and he told the nurse to admit us. They immediately put Ethan on oxygen The doctor came down and said it could be one of two things; his heart or pneumonia. He had someone come and do an echo right away. They didn’t have a pediatric cardiologist so they would just have the adult cardiologist look at it and if it looked abnormal they would send it out to be read. Well it came back very abnormal and before I knew it Ethan’s doctor said that he needed to be life flighted to either Geisinger, Hershey or CHOP. He said that he did his residence at Hershey and that if it were his child he would want him to go there. My son’s doctor’s appt was at 1:45 that day and by 7 at night we were waiting for the Life Lion to get our son. It all happened so fast and I had never been more scared. We made the 2 hour drive to Hershey ( It felt like 10 hours) and got to Hershey Medical Center around 10pm. We waited in the family room to get some kind of information about my baby. At that point, I didn’t know if he was going to live or not. They came in to get me and my family and took us to a seperate room. There they told us that he had a congential heart defect called Total Anamolous Pulminary Venous Return. He was going to need open heart surgery within the next day or two. Well two days later he had open-heart surgery on 11/30. He did very well but within the next 24 hours after they took him off the breathing machine his left lung collapsed. They didnt have to intibate him again, thank God, but they did have to put him on vapo thurm and do chest pt every half hour. Finally his lung got better and he started to make great improvments. He was released from the hospital on 12/9. We were there for 12 days and I was scared to leave all the doctors and nurses. They took such great care of him that I was afraid I wouldnt be able to give him the care he needed. Of course all the doctors and nurses reassured me that I would do fine. The first few weeks home were very nerve wracking. Did he look blue? Was he eating enough? Was he in pain? Does his incision look ok? I was very anxious. I am happy to say that now he is doing very well and I am less anxious. He had his check up with Dr. Monaco on January 17 and he couldn’t be more happy with how Ethan’s doing. He is gaining weight and has great color. His echo also showed that his pulminary veins were good and open with no obtruction. There is still a possibility that this could happen, but for now all is well. Some days I still have anxiety but then I try to remember how blessed I am to still have him and his older brother. Ethan just turned 5 months yesterday and he is the sweetest, happiest baby in the world now!”

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