VSD?

VSD- Ventricular septal defect describes one or more holes in the wall that separates the right and left ventricles of the heart. Ventricular septal defect is one of the most common congenital (present from birth) heart defects. It may occur by itself or with other congenital diseases.

Before a baby is born, the right and left ventricles of its heart are not separate. As the fetus grows, a wall forms to separate these two ventricles. If the wall does not completely form, a hole remains. This hole is known as a ventricular septal defect, or a VSD.

Ventricular septal defect is one of the most common congenital heart defects. The baby may have no symptoms, and the hole can eventually close as the wall continues to grow after birth. If the hole is large, too much blood will be pumped to the lungs, leading to heart failure. The cause of VSD is not yet known. This defect often occurs along with other congenital heart defects.

Symptoms-Patients with ventricular septal defects may not have symptoms. However, if the hole is large, the baby often has symptoms related to heart failure.

Most common symptoms- Shortness of breath, Fast breathing, Hard breathing, Paleness, Failure to gain weight, Fast heart rate, Sweating while feeding, Frequent respiratory infections

Treatment-If the defect is small, no treatment is usually needed. However, the baby should be closely monitored by a health care provider to make sure that the hole eventually closes properly and signs of heart failure do not occur. Babies with a large VSD who have symptoms related to heart failure may need medicine to control the symptoms and surgery to close. Lilly takes a diuretics twice a day.
If symptoms continue even with medication, open heart surgery to close the defect with a Gore-tex patch is needed.

Background

This blog is to update our family and friends on Lilly's heart repair progress.

Background:  When Lilly was born her pediatrician heard a heart murur while examinng her. While we were in the hospital Lilly's heart was looked at with an echocardiogram (basically an ultrasound of the heart). The test was braodcast live to Seattle Children's Hospital where a cardiologist viewed the pictures and then informed us that she had a large VSD which is 7mm in size. (See VSD post for detailed info on what a VSD means). A lot to take in with a 1 day old newborn baby...

Thus began our relationship with Seattle Children's and our many trips back and forth from Bellingham for checkups until Lilly was 6 months old and we moved to Bellevue. What a blessing as now we only live 15 minutes from the hospital. A typical visit to the cardiology clinic includes an EKG, oxygen, blood pressure and echocardiogram tests, this is followed by a detailed visit to review results with our cardiologists Dr. Bhat and Dr. Chun. 

We have known in the back of our minds the possibility of open heart surgery to repair the hole since birth and were informed by our cardiologist Dr. Chun on February 8th shortly after her 1st birthday (after 2 consecutive echocardiograms showing the heart to be enlarged in size due to increased blood flow from the heart having to work so hard to compensate for the hole) that Lilly would be presented to the board of cardiologists on February 25th to determine if Lilly was a candidate for open heart surgery to repair her VSD. We received notice the next day that consensus of the board was 100% and that surgery was necessary and we then scheduled her surgery for April 15th, 2013. 

We will be updating this blog daily while we are in the hospital to keep everyone up to date on Lilly's recovery as there is no cell phone service. Feel free to leave comments or email me at aramirez113@gmail.com or pm on Facebook.