Atrial Septal Defect

August 22, Cleo, Roger and I are going to the Children's Hospital at Egleston for an appointment at the children's cardiology center there.  I suspect they want to take a look at her heart (EKG, sonogram) and then we will discuss dates for the catheter procedure I discuss below. Cleo has a little hole in her heart - it's a congenital heart defect (Atrial Septal Defect) that she's had since birth and she's been seeing a pediatric cardiologist since she was 2 weeks old.  All babies have the hole in utero but normally it closes up when they come out.  The pediatrician at Northside heard a murmur when she was born and immediately referred us to a pediatric cardiologist.  

Her type of defect is one of the most common types of heart defects so cardiologists are very familiar with treating them.  The hole isn't getting smaller, some do get smaller and go away, and the conventional wisdom is to close it by the time the child is 5. So, we are having it taken care of in the next month or so. While Cleo's under general anesthesia, the doctor sends a catheter into her femoral vein near her groin and feeds the catheter into her heart and closes the hole with two little pieces of mesh that clamp onto her heart tissue like a little sandwich (around the hole) and then her body grows tissue over the mesh material. We won't have to have the material removed or repeat the procedure when she's older. The material is super tiny and thin. The hole is the size of the bottom of a pencil eraser.  It is an overnight procedure and I will stay with her. She will miss around a week of school while she recovers. I am not happy that she has to have this procedure performed but I know it has to be done. 

There's a higher incidence of strokes in people who have this type of heart defect so we need to have the hole closed up. I really am okay, it's a very routine procedure.  It's just that it will be performed on our little girl. I know she will be ok.

Her heart is under a little bit of strain too because the hole allows oxygenated blood from her left atrium (chamber) to spill into the right atrium (chamber) of her heart filled with non-oxygenated blood.  This makes the heart work harder and can cause it to become enlarged. At one time when she was 4 her heart was enlarged and she had to take a medicine that made her pee a lot.  The medicine worked and reduced the size of her heart. We gave it to her when she was just starting to get a hang of not peeing in her pull-up at night.  We had to put on hold our desire (and her desire) to complete nighttime potty training.  Once she went off the medicine, she became completely potty trained.