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Natalia Ashlyn Reese Bynum was born at 39 weeks on August 9th, 2006 and appeared to be the healthiest baby. The birth was a normal birth with no complications.
On Friday, August 11th, her pediatrician was doing his check ups & heard a heart murmur. He told us that he wanted the cardiologist to look at her heart. Dr. Israel(cardiologist) examined her heart & found that she had a Congenital Heart Defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot with large VSD and pulmonary stenosis. Dr. Israel then came into my room around 12:30 & explained the condition and told us that she would have to have open heart surgery when she was a little bigger. She was sent down to the 3rd floor of the hospital to NICU. The nurse rushed me down to NICU so I could see her before 1pm. No visitors were allowed from 1 pm to 3 pm. She then stayed in NICU until she was 6 days old. The reason being that she was sent there is so that they could monitor the heart murmur closing to make sure she didn't have any problems.
On Tuesday, August 15th, 2006, Dr. Israel checked her heart again and the hole was fairly small. He said she was able to go home and eat as much as she wanted. She was then discharged at 430 pm. We went to see Dr Israel again a few weeks later. He saw some problems with her heart. He thought one of the valves wasn't connected to anything. He was very concerned so he scheduled her an appointment that week to see the surgeon & his team in Nashville TN. It turns out there wasn't a problem like he thought. Just to be on the safe side, they did many x-rays, drew blood, echo cardiograms, EKG and checked her stats. They had to submit all the information and pictures of her heart to their board to see when they can get the surgery done. They called us 2 weeks later to schedule her surgery. We had to go in for pre-op on October 18th, 2006 for further testing. She had the open heart surgery on October 24th, 2006 to repair the Tetralogy of Fallot. They used a Dacron patch to close the VSD, then they used a trans annular patch to construct the pulmonary valve and right ventricular myectomy. She is doing great and is growing great and very active. You wouldn't even know she has a heart defect.
We have a surgery date for Natalia’s valve replacement. It will be July 24th at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt. Pre-op is July 23rd!
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