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Showing posts with the label congenital heart defect awareness

Dance, Dance, Dance All Month Long

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Faith has had a super fun month with many opportunities to dance! At the beginning of April, she began her last session of adaptive dance at Northern Plains Dance. There are 5 sessions throughout the year, and then they take a break over summer and resume in the fall. Faith at an adaptive dance class  The adaptive dance classes take place Friday evenings. I pick her up a little bit early from her day program so that she has a chance to rest a bit before heading off to dance. Then once she gets home, she likes to watch the whole week of Wheel of Fortune, which we record every night.  On the second Sunday of April, Faith participated in the Northern Plains Dance student showcase where all of the students demonstrated the skills they have acquired throughout the year. Faith was excited to be on stage again at the Belle Mehus!  This year, the adaptive dance class performed to the song "Golden." They were able to do the 4:00 show instead of the earlier one, which made it pos...
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Adults Living with Congenital Heart Defects (CHD)

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We are right in the middle of Congenital Hearts Defect (CHD) Awareness Week, which runs from February 7th through 14th. I am glad to see so many posts on social media to help draw awareness! Many of those posts center around children with CHD, which is good as heart defects are the most common birth defect in the United States. But many people are unaware of how CHD affects adults. Hence, this blog post!  In 2010, there were 1.4 million adults in the United States living with congenital heart defects (CHD). Due to increased survival, this number increases by about 5% every year. These numbers are significant considering that at one time babies born with CHD had virtually no chance of becoming an adult. Thanks to surgical advances and research in pediatric cardiology in the past 50 years, most congenital heart defects have been able to be corrected. Today, babies born with heart defects have a much better outlook than they did 50, or even 15 years ago. February 7-14th is CHD Awar...
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CHD Awareness Week: My Heart Story (So Far)

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In February 1974 when my mom took me home from the hospital, she thought she had a perfectly healthy baby. But when her mom came for a visit five weeks later to see her granddaughter, she asked why my lips looked discolored. Grandma Dorothy also noticed I slept a lot, even for a newborn. Mom assured Grandma she would ask the doctor about it during my six-week checkup. Mom took me to the same clinic in Wolf Point, Montana, where I had been born. She and Dad were living in a tiny town called Lustre, where Dad worked as a ranch hand. My regular pediatrician was unavailable. Instead, a young doctor, fresh out of medical school examined me.  Dr. Mattley quickly agreed the bluish tint to my lips was disconcerting and because of it, dubbed me a "blue baby." He told Mom that my body wasn't getting enough oxygen, which is why I was cyanotic.  He also detected a heart murmur. An X-ray confirmed a possible heart defect. Following the exam, Dr. Mattley called a clinic in Great Falls,...
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