My Son, My Miracle Page 5

Jared is taken into surgery immediately after birth . . .

I am a Child of God

I am a child of God.

And he has sent me here.

Has given me an earthly home,

with parents kind and dear.

I am a child of God.

And so my needs are great.

Help me to understand his words,

Before it grows too late.

I am a child of God.

Rich blessings are in store.

If I but learn to do his will,

I'll live with him once more.

Lead me, guide me,

Walk beside me.

Help me find the way.

Teach me all that I must do,

To live with him some day.

 

Jared was taken into surgery immediately after his birth.  There was little time to get him stabilized and prepped.  During that time, I was still receiving anesthesia.  Tears were still flowing down my cheeks, soaking my sheets.  I had little hope that Jared would come out of surgery alive.  Steve was optimistic.

Shortly after this first surgery to repair Jared's diaphragmatic hernia, a team of pediatric surgeons huddled into the room where Steve and I were waiting.  They looked tired but encouraged.  They reported that they had, "good news and bad news."  The good news was that the diaphragmatic hernia repair was the best repair that this particular team of surgeons had ever encountered.  The bad news was that after opening Jared up and seeing inside his chest with the naked eye, he  had only one hypoplastic (small) right lung with about one quarter "lung tissue" on the left side that could not be characterized as a lung.

Jared's bowels and spleen had traveled through a large hole in his diaphragm and had lodged into his left chest cavity.  The surgeons were able to replace the bowels and spleen to their proper places and close the large hole.  Today's, surgeons are able to do this procedure while the baby is still in the uterus.  They open the womb, perform the surgery on the tiny fetus and close everything back up.  The baby then continues to grow and heal until time for delivery.  If the baby is still developing and growing and continues to thrive until delivery, they have a much better chance of survival after birth. 

When I was pregnant with Jared, we did not have that option.  The only time I had ever heard the phrase "diaphragmatic hernia" was when I was hospitalized during my sixth month of pregnancy with Jared.  I was  diabetic and my obstetrician wanted to make sure everything was stable.  My room mate was also a young pregnant mom with diabetes.  She had been told, after an ultrasound, that her baby did have a diaphragmatic hernia and she was warned that her baby may not make it.  My heart cried for her.  She was so sad and didn't appear to have any hope.  Little did I know that the baby I was carrying had the same congenital defect.

Jared's surgeons went on to tell Steve and I that many people live perfectly normal lives with just one lung.  We were just beginning to feel an elated joy of relief when, within minutes, we were approached  by yet another surgeon--a thoracic surgeon and following closely behind, two cardiac surgeons. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Masten, we tried to stabilize your son after the diaphragmatic hernia repair and couldn't.  As is often the case with children born with diaphragmatic hernias, there are sometimes other unassociated problems.  In Jared's case, we've found that he has a rare and complex heart disease."

Trying hard to bring a highly technical diagnosis down to our level of understanding, the surgeons explained that our son's heart consisted of one ventricle instead of two and one functioning atrium instead of two.  His aortic and pulmonary arteries were switched.  They explained that the switching of the arteries wasn't a big problem for Jared's heart because they both joined the only ventricle he had.  However, this would make it difficult or perhaps impossible to transplant a donor heart. 

Jared's pulmonary artery, the artery carrying oxygen to the lungs, was so constricted that it was impossible for him to get enough blood through to the lungs for oxygenation.  The only thing keeping him alive in this regard was a small ductus that stays open in a fetus but naturally closes shortly after birth.   Jared was placed on a medication to try to keep that ductus open as long as possible. 

Technically, Jared's heart consisted of a single ventricle, hypoplastic left atrium, severe pulmonary artery stenosis, mitral valve atresia (missing mitral valve) and an L-transposition of the great arteries.

After fully diagnosing Jared's heart defects, his cardiologist told Steve and I that, "he should have died on the operating table during the diaphragmatic hernia repair."

Stay Tuned . . .