Our little Dean
Dean is finally home to spend Christmas with his loving family. Dean just arrived from Toronto's Children's hospital after having undergone open heart surgery November 11, 2015 to repair a valve and a hole he has in his heart. Prior to his open heart surgery he had surgery in June, right after birth to correct a hernia, and then another round of surgery in July shortly after to repair a problem that arose from the first surgery. He sure is a tough little guy and definitely has the will to live. Since his surgery he has been growing like a bad weed, he has gained weight, and he is absorbing everything little thing he can in order to grow into a fine young man. He is definitely a gift to cherish!
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April 13, 2016
Dean in Crisis
Our sweet little guy whom we now call Superman just went through the biggest fight of his life. Dean like all other babies got sick and was taken to the doctor where he was diagnosed with the flu and prescribed medication to take care of it. Within the week they were back at the hospital because the medication Dean needed to combat the flu was causing him to become constipated, so they had to give him medicine for that. As time was passing Dean didn't seem to be getting better at all, so his mom decided to bring into the doctor's office rather than wait the 7 days to his appointment. Once the doctor took a look at him he was rushed to the hospital and arrangement were made to ship him within the hour to Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto because he was retaining a lot of fluids and his heart was in major stress. The medical team in our town was not sure if he could even make the trip by air without going into cardiac arrest. Our whole family was devastated at the news and could not believe this was happening to our baby! The past week has been the worse week I've had in years, because it was so bittersweet. It's been touch and go all weeks as we patiently waited for positive news, but every time the phone rang we were scared to answer it because it seemed like things were getting even more and more grim for the little guy. As soon as he arrived at the hospital in Toronto they needed to sedate him immediately in hopes to slow his heart down and prevent him from any added stress which in turn could have cause him to go into cardiac arrest. After they sedated him they immediately started doing as much testing as they could to find out what had happened. In the meantime his mom is brought into another room and was being told her nine month old son was in heart failure. How could this happen? He was in one of the best hospitals he could be in and he had the best specialist in Ontario looking after him, yet they couldn't figure out what was going on inside that little boys body. In a bit of a panic I (great-grandmother) decided to start a prayer circle for him and asked my friends to pray from him and asked them to ask their friends to pray for him and before long we had a huge circle. As this virus was taking it's toll on Dean's heart muscle Dean was getting weaker and weaker and they knew they had to slow his heart down somehow, so they decided to shock it which brought on another risk. Dean's heart could slow down, or it could stop completely, but choices at this point were very limited as they still didn't know what had cause the problem. After they shocked his heart a second time and seen that it still was not working and his heart was still going 220 bpm they decided to try a medication that may or may not help slow down the heart, and low and behold after days of working on this baby to slow down his heart rate the medication works. Now the goal was to find out the cause of this near death experience and as these poor doctors worked frantically to find a cause for this baby's heart failure they discovered he had caught a virus and the virus attacked Dean's heart muscle causing the heart muscle to pump the blood through the heart too fast which is why Dean's heart rate sored to 220 bpm.
Once they were able to name this virus,(Enterovirus) they were able to start treating it and within a few days Dean was finally showing some improvement so they knew the medicine was working. Now he is doing much better and will pull through, but he will be in the hospital a while longer as his heart is still not fully regulated yet, but it's getting there. He will have to undergo more test to make sure his heart or heart muscle wasn't damaged during this terrible ordeal, but the main thing is he is finally on the mend. What a strong little boy! I'm sure God has a purpose for him on this earth, and Dean is definitely proving he deserves to stay to fulfill that purpose. I thank God for taking the time to listen to our prayers when Dean was in dire straights because he was the only one who could make sure that Dean was taken care of during this difficult time in his young life because he made sure Dean had the best doctors and nurses treating his medical problem and the best parents in the world who never left his side, and the best group of family and friends a child could possibly have to support him. I guess it's like they say, "It takes a village to raise a child!"
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Oct. 16, 2018
Dean's Check-up in Toronto.
Dean is now 3 years old and is doing very well. He has just returned from Toronto after having to go for a yearly check-up because of heart problems. We thought perhaps it would be his last trip, but according to his mom he will have to return for more check-ups because he has started having trouble with a rapid heartbeat, so he will still have to be monitored a little longer. Dean is such a trooper though and very curious, so I'm sure he will fight this all the way because I don't think he's going to let a minor detail like a defective heart stop him from doing what he wants to do. He's our little Superman...a real tough little dude!
