Ashlyn, born 2008

I had Ashlyn on Thursday 9/18/08. She was just fine, eating well and alert. When we went to be released on Friday, they wanted to keep her because she was running a fever. They ran blood work on her and a culture to see what was causing the fever. She stayed in the room with me until I went home on Saturday.

 

Around 2:30 am on Sunday morning (9/21), the NICU at the hospital called to tell me that Ashlyn was having trouble breathing, they had put her on oxygen and taken an x-ray of her heart. The x-ray showed that her heart was enlarged and they wanted to send her to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL. She made the trip very well, and once we arrived she was settled.

 

Ashlyn was diagnosed with Double Outlet Right Ventricle(DORV). They gave her medicine to keep her PDA open and then monitored it closing to decide if she was going to have surgery right away or go home to grow.

 

Ashlyn spent ten days in the NICU, then came home for almost three weeks, before having surgery at about six weeks old (10/27/08). The surgeon's office was surprised she had been sent home, telling us most arterial switch (surgery type she had) do not come home before having surgery. Ashlyn never really fit the symptoms of DORV, she ate well, gained weight well and wasn't real sleepy, nor did she look blue. She came home eleven days after surgery.

 

Ashlyn continues to grow each day. She is now gaining weight and is developing normally. She is also medicine free; they took her off after a month because of how well she was doing. Ashlyn has a small hole around her VSD patch that they continue to monitor.

 

Story by Ashlyn's mom, Carly - FLORIDA