Where my medical journey started!

(1 year old me at Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane)

The night I was born it became pretty obvious I had some issues… you see, I started turning blue. I was born with Transposition of the Great Coronary Arteries (TGA), VSD (Ventricular septal defect), PDA (Patent ductus arteriosus) and PFO (Patent foramen ovale).

This all left me with Ischemic Heart Disease – which in short means that when arteries are narrowed, less blood and oxygen reaches the heart muscle.

By the time I was one I had already had two Open Heart Surgeries…

My first one, one month after being born, was an Initial atrial septectomy where they were trying to create a small hole between the upper two chambers of the heart, to give my heart some room to flow. They use a small Balloon to open the artery up. They were doing attempting this via a Coronary Angiogram.

Unfortunately, the angiogram was unsuccessful due to my pelvic veins getting in the way… so they had to do it manually via Open Heart Surgery.

Just after turning one, the second one was a Transposition of the Great Arteries – Arterial Switch Repair using the LeCompte manoeuvre (watch this video).

Here is an extremely medically detailed link

Or see here an explanation from a Doctor:

Haha, but trust me… watch the video… it’s a great explanation!

Basically, my main pipes were around the wrong way. One was getting oxygen rich blood instead of deoxygenated blood and vice versa. So they switched them!

My favourite image I have in my head was painted by my aunty. She said the Dr explained my surgery like:

“Working on a beating chestnut with two-minute noodles bursting out of it”.

Nowadays, at 27 years old, my narrow artery is a bit like this (see below my detailed medical diagram made in paint)

Wow, that is a terrible drawing!

My point being my LAD is narrow and causing a blood supply restriction to my heart.

That’s the brief basics of it, for now… This was only the start of my journey.

Hope you enjoyed my 1st blog as brief as it was!