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Brandon, born 2009

I gave birth to Brandon February 27th 2009. He cried right away, had pink skin and he seemed perfectly healthy. He was born at 2:01 AM, so shortly after giving birth I went to sleep and he was taken to the regular newborn nursery. The next morning, a nurse came in and told me that they found a murmur that may or may not be something. I was hopeful that it was an innocent murmur like so many children have and would turn out to be nothing. I didn't get to see or hold my baby at all that whole day because they wanted to monitor him and do tests in the special care nursery.

 

Later that evening my worst fears came true when the cardiologist came in and told me that she thought my son had Aortic Stenosis. Brandon was then immediately transported via helicopter to The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I had to wait a whole extra day before they would discharge me. Luckily my husband was able to drive there the same night and be with him. He stayed there for the eight days. We were lucky enough to stay at the Ronald McDonald house so that we could be at the hospital with Brandon everyday.

 

On his seventh day there he had balloon valvuloplasty in order to make his condition less severe. Although he will never be healed his gradient is much lower then it was at birth.

 

We now see our cardiologist regularly to make sure Brandon is doing well and that his valve is not becoming narrower. He is growing and doing extremely well. He looks and acts like a normal baby and you would never know he has a problem by looking at him. Our cardiologist said that most likely Brandon will need another balloon valvuloplasty or a valve replacement surgery in the future. We are hoping that Brandon never needs another procedure done and that if he does, it is not until he is an adult and can better understand what he has. Everyone at CHOP was truly amazing and we are grateful that they took such good care of our son.

 

Story by Brandon's mom, Aimee - NEW JERSEY

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