Theresa and Jade (Christmas, 2002)

Theresa is an identical twin. She and her sister, Jade, were born May 21st, 2001. She also has an older sister named Katie and a 2 year old Basset Hound named Casey.

During the sixth month of pregnancy, we found out (all in the same day) that not only were we having TWIN GIRLS (we were trying for a boy) but that one of our girls had a bad heart. After 4-1/2 hours of sonograms the PC said she had a "hole in her heart". We didn't find out until after the girls were born that she actually has two "holes" in her heart, along with 5 or 6 other things. She is doing better than expected though and is getting ready for her first surgery at the end of September.

April 2003 Update

Well, here's an update. Theresa and Jade will be 2 in about three weeks. Theresa is outstanding. She is surpassing all expectations. She flew through the Glenn and is not on any meds or oxygen. We were expecting the Fontan in August '03 but she is doing so well that the cardiologist wants to try to wait until she's 3 or older. YEAH!

April 2005 Update

Theresa and Jade will be 4 next month. Theresa had the completed Fontan a year ago. She had lots of complications including problems with her heart rhythm coming out of anesthesia and her lungs collapsed twice in the PICU. But after 10 days she went home with only one med. However, her oxygen levels haven't gone up. She is about the same now as she was last year. So tomorrow we will go back to the cath lab and try to figure out what's up. Hopefully there won't be another surgery. To look at her you wouldn't know anything was wrong. She plays with her twin sister and her big sister Katie. She loves dress-up and has a vivid imagination. She says she wants to be a princess when she grows up.

April 2006 Update

As of April 18th, 2006, Theresa is happy and getting ready to start kindergarten with her twin sister in August. The completed Fontan procedure didn't exactly go as planned. Her lungs collapsed twice after surgery due to complications from scar tissue. The left side of her diaphragm was paralyzed for about a year, no one knows exactly what caused it. To make a long story short, her oxygen saturation after the Fontan is almost the same as it was before. She had a catheterization last year to close a large collateral artery and that made a slight improvement. She has another collateral that needs to be closed but the doctors want to hold off as long as possible. But....she's a happy, active kid (MAJOR DRAMA QUEEN!!!) and that's enough for us.