A New Discovery..........

This is the last one I'll post.
A New Discovery
Under the chapter titled "Discovering Your Child has a Heart Defect"



Three months after Lauren's first open heart surgery, we were sure we had already received the worst news that we could possibly get. That news was discovering Lauren had several heart defects, and that she would have several surgeries.

At a routine checkup, Lauren was 3 1/2 months old, her cardiologist decided that Lauren needed a heart cath to see if she was ready for the second surgery. Lauren's heart function was getting worse, and her doctor felt it was time. Two weeks later, we arrived at ambulatory surgery to have Lauren's first heart cath. It was almost as hard as having her go back for surgery the first time. We got through handing her to anesthesia, and we waited in the waiting room while the cath was done. The cardiologist that performed the heart cath came out several hours later and called us into the family room.

He went on to explain her lung artery pressures, and other things that my husband and I were still learning the meanings of. He explained that, "her pressures across her chest were a little off, but not much. But, when I measured the pressure difference between her chest and legs, the pressures were way off. I decided to go up her other leg to look at her descending aorta, and this is what I found." He showed us the pictures, but we didn't know what to look for. He pointed out her descending aorta and all of her iliac arteries (arteries that extend off the descending aorta and supply blood/oxygen to the lower organs) were very small. He told us that he had already shown the pictures to Lauren's cardiologist and her heart surgeon. They all agreed that her heart function was getting worse because her heart was working so hard to supply the lower organs through the small arteries. They decided that the second surgery would not help her and neither would a transplant. A new heart would eventually wear out as well.

My husband and I sat there once again, completely devastated. It took days for the news to sink in, and I'm not sure that it ever actually did. A couple of days later, we decided to go about life the best we could; she was still the same baby we had taken to the hospital.

Lauren's cardiologist called us up five days after the cath to talk to us. She said basically the same things, but that they were hoping for the impossible--that the heart cath was wrong. She added a new medicine and increased two of Lauren's other meds. She told us she wasn't giving up, but most likely, we would lose her within the next few months. She scheduled a ct scan for one month later. She wanted something to compare the heart cath pictures to.


Jeannie Reynolds
(870)942-0832 jordan12694@alltel.net
Title Proposal for Chicken Soup for the Soul Books
Proposed Title: Chicken Soup for the Mended Hearts' Soul
Chicken Soup for the CHD Families' Soul
"A New Discovery" page 2


We had the ct scan done, and still had to wait for the results. During this time, we gave Lauren a six month birthday party, and our oldest daughter, Jordan, decided to be homeschooled for her fourth grade year so she could be with Lauren as much as possible.

Finally, seven weeks after receiving the latest news, Lauren's cardiologist called us to come in. She told us the radiologist had studied Lauren's pictures for weeks before coming to the conclusion that she could, in fact, live with this newly discovered defect. The radiologist's final diagnosis was that Lauren's descending aorta and iliac arteries were on the low side of normal. We were absolutely thrilled. Once again, we were shown that there is only One that can decide our child's future.

The entire cardiology staff thought Lauren could not live with this defect. This is just another example of how prayer, faith, and trust can change things. When you are handed a devastating blow, just remember, that God doesn't just hand out one miracle per family; in our case, and many others, He's handed us many.