Thursday 16 August 2018

9 years since their heart surgeries. #CHD

Today is 9 years since my girls and I went into hospital so they could both have open heart surgery to repair the holes they have in their hearts. You can read our story here. It's something I like to blog about every year as it is important for us and it raises a bit of awareness about heart defects....


The short story is: One night the kids were messing about in their bedrooms and Becky shut the doors on Ellie's fingers....While getting her fingers fixed they realised Ellie had a problem with her heart and it was found she had a Atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD) (A hole in her heart) Becky showed the same symptoms so we got her checked out. Becky had the exact same defect on her heart as Ellie. We travelled to the hospital on the 16th of August. Becky had open heart surgery on the 17th of August and Ellie had her's on the 18th. 


Since the last anniversary the girls have been back to the hospital for a check up which was pretty routine....

We didn't see the usual doctor we normally see and this one was more blunt and upfront about where we stood with the girls hearts...He said the girls hearts haven't changed since the last check up but did say that with the leaking valves they will need surgery in the future as the leaking valves will cause the heart to swell which is not good. Ellie's is leaking a little more than Becky's and will need surgery sooner but not for a good few years yet, so I am not going to worry about it until I need to....

As I do every year in February I wrote a few blog posts for Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week.....Even after 9 years since heart surgery and nearly 6 years of blogging I always have something to say on the subject.....

I wrote about The Facts of Congenital Heart Defect's, I still find it shocking that CHD's are the most common birth defect's in the UK and that CHD’s are the number one cause of death from a birth defect killing twice as many children as cancer every year!

I wrote about The reality of heart surgery. It was a bit of a bit of a mind dump where I explained how I was feeling when my girls got diagnosed and stayed in hospital....

I wrote Where to find help & support when your child has a heart defect. Google is not the answer....When you Google things you always find the worse case scenario! 

I wrote about How having a CHD effects my girls lives....You would never guess they had heart problems if you met them but there is signs there....

My girls are fit and well at the moment and we rarely think about their heart problems which is a good thing but it is always in the back of my mind.....Here's to hopefully another nine years without needing any surgery!


5 comments :

  1. Such an important post to write and a mine of useful information for anyone who needs it. It must have been such a scary time, glad they're doing well now and as you say, there's plenty of time for worrying about the future op later xxx

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  2. Thank god that this all came to light nine years ago. It makes you really appreciate life when you have to go through a journey like this doesn't it? Here's to a healthy and happy future for both of your beautiful girls. Sending lots of love x

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  3. What a journey and glad things are going OK and you are getting the help from the Dr X #pocolo

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  4. Aww what a journey Kim. Glad to hear they are both fit and well. #PoCoLo

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  5. Thank you for sharing such an emotional journey for your family, the news of further surgery must be a worry for you all. thank you for linking up with #pocolo

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