Numero uno

So welcome all to our blog to keep you up to date with Oscar's progress.

We decided that since Oscar has quite a few medical procedures to go through in the next 12 months that it would be good to start a blog and keep you all up to date with the latest news without you needing to call for medical updates. Of course all the terminology is confusing for us too, so this blog gives us the chance to get it all down clearly. 

Many of you won't have heard that to go along with the cleft lip and palate, Oscar has recently been diagnosed with a hole in his heart. It is called a VSD - Ventricular Septal Defect. 

"A VSD is a whole in the ventricular septum - the muscular wall that separates the right and left ventricles, or main pumping chambers of the heart. This opening allows the movement, or 'shunting', of blood between the ventricles. Most commonly, oxygenated blood from the left ventricle enters the right ventricle because there is  a greater pressure in the left ventricle and the resistance in the lungs is significantly lower than in the body tissues. This is known as a 'left-to-right-shunt'". 

"Ventricular Septal Defects are the most common form of congenital heart disease. Small holes usually close spontaneously in the first year or two of life. Large holes almost always require surgical closure in the first year of life. Larger holes may interfere with a child's feeding and growth and may cause rapid breathing, excessive sweating and poor weight gain..." (luckily for us, Oscar has not presented with any of these symptoms so far apart from his mildly increased respiratory rate).

"In a 'left-to-right-shunt', blood that just returned from the lungs crosses the VSD and goes back to the lungs again. This causes increased pulmonary (lung) blood flow. A heart murmur occurs because there is a pressure difference between the two ventricles and there is a turbulent blood flow crossing the hole. The smaller the hole the louder the murmur."

Oscar's is a large hole, which means he has to have surgery to correct it. 

We weren't expecting this added complication but thanks to our great health system Oscar is in very good hands and we have been well taken care of! 

Re Cleft: As you will know we had thought cleft-lip repair would be done at around 5-6 months of age and cleft-palate repair at around 10-12 months of age. Oscar Noah's heart surgery will force these other procedures to be delayed. While recovery from the cleft-related surgeries was expected to be comparatively immediate with Oscar released from hospital on the following day, the heart surgery will be more taxing with Oscar expected to be in hospital for up to ten days.

To be updated as news comes to hand.