Saving Little Hearts

It has been 8 years since my son was born with tetralogy of fallot. I just came home from his yearly echo and cardiologist appointment. The news was wonderful. I wanted to contact the surgeon who did Nathan's repair and tell him what an awesome job he did. When looking him up on the internet I discovered that he died in 2000 in defective tire accident. He's name was Dr. Haas. If you know how to contact he wife Heidi, please tell her thank you for all that her husband gave me.

Nathan was born at Arnold Palmer on 8/3/98. I was first told something wasn't right and they would take him to intermediate care for observation. After a few hours I was informed to go and see him because they were not sure he was going to live. The next day and many procedures later, I was told that Nathan was born with tetralogy of fallot. He would need a B-T shunt and later open heart surgery. He weighed 6 lb 6 oz and was 4 weeks early. At 4 day he had the B-T shunt. Dr. Haas said the surgery was tricky because the PDA was on the wrong side. Afterward he coded. Then went home at 10 days old. Nathan had one tet spell in October. The only symptom he had was rapid breathing. No blue lips, fingers, toes, nothing. When we arrived at the ER he O2 sat was 67 %. At home I would massage him before each feeding and he grew rapidly. Originally they said his repair would be around 6 months, but Dr. Haas said he was ready at 3 months for his weight.

The second surgery was awful. I sat beside him for 7 days straight. Dr. Haas did an awesome job. He said that he ended up having to reopen Nathan because of a bleed so the surgery took longer than expected. The nurse said they put the monitors in color because I was a monitor watcher. Just looking at 3 poles full of IV pumps and what looked like jumbled christmas lights made me cry. After about 4 days Nathan woke up and smiled, even with a respirator and IV everywhere. I could not have imagined that he would ever grow up. Dr. Haas' nurse Patty was wonderful, telling me at least 10 times what they were doing and trying to draw me pictures.

Since then we have moved, I have remarried, and Nathan changed from Patterson to Fisher. He has just had his eighth birthday. He never stops. He even jumped the fence in PreK and ran away. His cardiologist says he has no limitations. The best thing was when he looked at me at the appointment today that there was no change from Nathan's echo last year. Looking at his scar he stated whoever did he's surgery did the best he had ever seen. I remember Dr. Haas doing surgery on a little girl and made the scar across instead of down the middle for later. Dr. Haas held my hand during one of the most difficult times in my life and also made my son's life very wonderful. Here is a picture of Nathan now. I wish Mrs.. Haas a wonderful life and thank God for Dr. Haas hands. (Which is a funny thing, because they were so big I asked how he could do wonderful work on little people)