Miles, born 2013

His heart condition was found by accident at 3 months old.  He did not have normal symptoms of someone with heart problems. Miles is known for being such a happy baby that his heart condition would never have been known if it wasn't for his visit to the Emergency Room, so it was a blessing in disguise.

 

He went into the ER because after one minute of tummy time he turned blue and wasn't breathing right. After observation, Miles was okay but a resident requested to do an x-ray to look at his heart and it showed he had enlarged heart in the left ventricle. After further tests, it showed Miles was in critical condition, his heart functioning at 11%. But all the doctors were shocked to see how normal his behavior was since he had such a sick heart. According to the doctors and lab results, Miles was born with this condition and was slowly struggling with very minimal symptoms that were not known to be related to a heart condition. The only real first sign was sweating as Miles started to recently sweat a lot but his pediatrician stated that it was normal.

 

Miles was in critical care at Lurie Children's hospital and the only way to survive was a heart transplant. He was on the transplant list for over 30 days and they found a match and and he had the transplant.  It was a success. After 6 weeks of recovery in ICU we were transferred to the Ronald McDonald House which we stayed for another 3 months. We did encounter a few emergency room visits due to choking and vomiting, but we eventually were able to go home in June 2014. Miles is currently 2 years old and doing very well that you sometimes forget he had a heart surgery.

 

Story by Miles' mom, Roxanne - Chicago