Brady Sholar

Brady came into the world very quickly early Father's Day morning 06/18/17 1:58 am at Vidant in Greenville, both he and mom did great with a delivery that only lasted 10 minutes. Soon after delivery his oxygen saturation levels were below where the nurses would like and he was taken to NICU for monitoring. Shortly after being taken for monitoring we spoke with a NICU doctor who had a Pediatric Cardiologist come in to assess him. After some scans and tests, they quickly discovered he has a congenital heart defect known as Transposition of the Great Vessels where his oxygenated blood was not properly circulating. Within an hour or two of being born, a heart procedure was performed at Vidant to allow his blood to mix and provide a temporary fix to keep his blood oxygen saturation levels at a tolerable amount.

That procedure allowed him to stabilize and with the help of a ventilator his saturation levels were quickly back to a safe level. Once he stabilized the Vidant team coordinated an airlift to Duke Children's Hospital's Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit where he will go through an open heart surgery procedure to correct the transposition. We are so thankful for the Vidant team catching the defect so quickly which was life saving for him. Mom was discharged from Vidant a few hours later and we drove straight to Duke. The PCICU team was able to wean him off of the ventilator within hours of being in their care.

Since being at Duke, he has continued to strengthen and has gone from supplemental nutrition to exclusively feeding milk and formula. He has had several tests run, and is scheduled for surgery with Dr. Lodge Thursday 06/22. The doctors have been very pleased with his progress and his response to treatments and are currently very positive and optimistic.

The procedure with Dr. Lodge is an Arterial Switch Operation that is called the Jatene procedure. While it is very complicated and a major procedure, the outcomes are positive and the long-term results are very good with very little future limitation. From what we currently know recovery really depends on his response to treatment, but can be lengthy.

His big sister Berkley got to meet him yesterday 06/19 and she was very excited and already loves him very much. She has been great through this so far and can't wait to have him at home.

We have had so many well wishes, prayers, and offers for help that we so greatly appreciate. Thank you to everyone who has called, texted, emailed, and prayed for our family.