When I look back over the past year, I am sweetly reminded that we have reached another milestone – Carter has a birthday tomorrow, he will be 8 years old. The memories of those many weeks in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit for each surgery have slowly receded in my mind; not forgotten, but now just a vague cloudy recollection of a time best left in the past. Today I focus on the smart, lovable boy who loves to play soccer, loves his hermit crabs, loves to read and loves to play video games.
Over the past year I have connected with many parents of children with HLHS. Everyone says the same thing – We wouldn’t have it any other way, I wouldn’t change a thing. I understand this, I really do, but parents in the future will have options we never had – fetal intervention and gene therapy. And someday, just maybe, HLHS will not be the most common cause of death from cardiac defects in infants.
