Well today we had to take Kaleb to a cardiologist because last week his pediatrician caught that Kaleb had developed a heart murmur. So with everything that is going on with him and with his major surgery coming up, we had to go get his heart checked out to make sure everything is ok. Kaleb did great, he was such a good baby throughout the whole process. They had to do a EKG on him and he also had a 40min echo ultrasound done. We were told that Kaleb had two heart murmurs.

One was normal and the other was abnormal and Kaleb had something called Ventricular Septal Defect also known as VSD. It is a heart defect in which there are one or more holes in the wall (septum) that separates the two lower pumping chambers (ventricles) of the heart. In normal development the wall between the chambers closes before the fetus is born, so that by birth oxygen rich blood is kept from mixing with the oxygen-poor blood. When the hole does not close, it may cause higher pressure in the heart or reduced oxygen to the body.

The first thought that my husband and I had was, we couldn't believe that our son had a 4th diagnosis and if he was born with this defect, how did we not know sooner?? Well when the lung and right ventricle pressure begin to fall to normal to low levels, more blood will cross the VSD and the heart murmur will get louder. Babies usually begin to show signs of over-circulation, sometimes referred to as congestive heart failure.

Signs of congestive heart failure include poor feeding, fast breathing (even when the baby is sleeping), excessive sweating, poor weight gain, congestion and coughing. Severity of these symptoms depend upon the size of the hole. The larger the hole, the greater the severity of symptoms. In Kaleb's circumstances, the good news is that his VSD is a small hole and no treatment is needed at this time. We just have to let all his doctors and specialist know about his new condition and to take one day at a time because we don't know what will happen. We are hoping for the best which would be for the hole to close up on its own or not get bigger. We just a have to be aware of his condition and aware of the symptoms he can develop if the hole in his heart gets bigger. Surgery will be recommended if:

    1.) Congestive heart failure persists or the baby does not gain weight.

    2.) Persistent high pressure in the lungs due to VSD, is likely to cause permanent damage.

    3.) Other parts of the heart can potentially be affected by letting the hole remain open.

    4.) There is no evidence that the hole is closing by itself.

    5.) If the hole starts to get bigger.

 If everything goes well and he has no problems, then we come and see the cardiologist in 3 years and the same test are done and we see where we stand. In 75% of the time the hole will close up on its own, so lets hope Kaleb is part of the 75%. So it was a very weird day today to say the least and it just goes to show you what a fighter Kaleb is.