Family – Page 6 – Chris Kindred

Happy Mother’s Day!

I am a firm believer that moms are the least selfish people in the world. Now that I have children I have a much better understanding what my mom gave up and did for me everyday.

I am a firm believer that moms are the least selfish people in the world. Now that I have children I have a much better understanding what my mom gave up and did for me everyday. I love you mom and thank you for everything you did, do and will do for me.

I remember one of the first holidays Jen and I spent together. I bought her an Amazon Kindle and she was mad at me because I didn’t buy a card to give her with it. It is kind of funny to think about now because we don’t give each other cards anymore. We agreed that it wasn’t something we needed to do. We know how much we love each other and don’t need a card to prove that.

I took that to heart this Mother’s Day. I bought journals for both the girls to write or color in for each Mother’s Day. I will get the journals out each mother’s day and let the write a note to their mother in it. I think it will be really cool to see each of the journals as the girls get older and more mature. I am also hoping that these journals will be something that Jen and I can look back at to remember how wonderful this time in our life is.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there.

Doctors Are Artists Too

The doctors were amazing at explaining what was going on. They would sit down with us and most of the time draw pictures of what they thought was going on.

The doctors were amazing at explaining what was going on. They would sit down with us and most of the time draw pictures of what they thought was going on. After the Cath the doctor gave us an exact drawing of what Isabel’s Heart looks like. Here are some of those pictures. I am also throwing in one of when Addison was able to come visit us in Denver after the Cath.

The First Catheterization

If you missed any of the previous posts about Isabel’s birth you can check them out here:

Isabel is now a week old and is getting ready to have her first major procedure done. The doctor that was going to perform the Heart Catheterization came in and discussed the details of the procedure. They took her back and we waited. It it only took about an hour but it was one of the longest hours of my life.

The procedure was successful. We now know what Isabel’s anatomy looks like. Isabel was born with Pulmonary Atresia (PA), a Ventral Septal Defect (VSD), Major Aorto-Pulmonary Collateral Arteries (MAPCAs) and a Right Aortic Arch (RAA). Holy poop thats a mouth full. Honestly, I had to ask Jen for the terms because she is so much better at remembering the technical stuff. For those of you that my not have been paying attention during “Super Specific Heart Stuff 101”, here is a quick overview of what is going on.

Pulmonary Atresia

In Isabel’s case this means that she does not have a pulmonary valve and has a very small main pulmonary artery that does not contain any blood flow. The pulmonary artery supplies un-oxygenated blood to the lungs from the right ventricle. She does have both the right and left Pulmonary Arches that are providing some blood to the lungs but, they are being supplemented by the MAPCAs, described below, and not the Pulmonary Artery.

Ventral Septal Defect

Isabel has a hole between the right and left ventricles of her heart. Oxygenated blood is mixing with non-oxygenated blood and then being pumped through the Aorta to the rest of her body. This causes the oxygen level in her blood (~80 %) to be lower than normal (between 95-98 %).

Major Aorto-Pulmonary Collateral Arteries

This is cool and one of the reasons I absolutely love the human body. As Isabel grew her body realized that it was going to need to get blood to her lungs. It wasn’t going to get there through the pulmonary valve since she doesn’t have one, so the body created MAPCAs in order to get the blood where it needed to go. She has many small arteries that move the blood from the Aorta to the Pulmonary Arches and the lungs. These are what kept my daughter alive! Mind Blown…

Right Aortic Arch

Most people have an Aortic Arch that goes up and to the left supplying the blood to the head and arms and then it goes behind the heart and down to supply the legs and other organs like the liver and kidneys. Isabel’s actually goes up and to the right but still supplies the blood to the same parts of the body. There are people that live with a RAA and never know it.

The Next Step

Another good thing we found from the Cath was that they were able stop the Prostaglandin they had started her when we first arrived because it was not the Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) that was keeping her alive like they thought when we arrived. The PDA connects the Pulmonary Artery to the Aorta while the baby is still in utero. Normally after the first few breaths the PDA closes forcing blood to the lungs. Prostaglandin’s keep the PDA open.

Now knowing Isabel’s anatomy, the doctors are able to start planning her surgery. For the next few days we are waiting to hear from the surgeon about the options and when they schedule the surgery.

Baby’s First New Year!

Isabel’s has had an exciting first 3 days of life including a trip on a private plain.

If you missed any of the previous posts about Isabel’s birth you can check them out here:

Isabel’s has had an exciting first 3 days of life including a trip on a private plain. It was going to be a few days before the Heart Catherization because of the New Year holiday and finding time in the schedule. They placed a Nasogastric Intubation (NG) tube and started her on IV nutrition in order to make sure that she was getting everything she needed. She was eating but not as much as the doctors and nurses would like with everything that was going on. We had a few doctors stop by the room to make sure that we understood everything that was going on with Isabel and to give us the opportunity to ask any questions. Jen and I are both the kind of people that like to know everything possible so we always had a few questions.

By the 4th day we started to realize that all we had was what Jen packed in our baby bags expecting to stay maybe 2 nights in Gunnison. The hospital was amazing and gave us a taxi voucher in order to get to Target and buy a few things we needed. It gave us a great opportunity to get out of the hospital for a few hours and walked around Target. Isabel was eating very well and was off IV nutrition by mid afternoon and was able to be off the NG Tube before the new year. We rang in the new year with the amazing nursing staff at and for the first time in days a baby that didn’t have any tubes taped to her face.

We spent the next few days in a holding pattern waiting to find out when they would be able to schedule the Cath. The hospital had different people stopping by our room letting us know what the hospital has for parents and they gave us a weeks worth of Gift Cards for the cafeteria. This is also when I started talking to the financial aid consular. She helped get everything organized with our insurance company so we didn’t have to hear anything from them or the insurance company about money for a while. I know I have said this a few time before but the people we worked with at every level during the process went above and beyond any of our expectations.

On January 2nd we found out that the Cath was scheduled for 8:00 am on the next day. We were happy to know it was scheduled but it also meant she was going to be put under and have a pretty major procedure done.

A Stressful Trip To Denver

The Life Flight Team was at the hospital by 4:05 am on December 29th. It was amazing to watch them work and breakdown all the information the Gunnison nurses were providing them.

Yesterday I gave you a quick run through of Isabel’s birth and what went on in the first couple of days. If you didn’t get a chance to read it check it out here. Now to continuing on with getting Isabel to Denver.

The Life Flight Team was at the hospital by 4:05 am on December 29th. It was amazing to watch them work and breakdown all the information the Gunnison nurses were providing them. They ran tests and transferred Isabel to their machines. They did great job explaining to Jen and I every thing they were doing and they were able to answer any questions we had as well. After a short time making sure Isabel was stable they were ready to head back to the airport. We were lucky that they had an extra seat on the plane for Jen because it was going to be a hard drive to Denver that night with it snowing the majority of the way and running on very little sleep. We decided that I would head back to Crested Butte and start driving to Denver the following morning. After the quick flight to Denver and a short ambulance trip Jen and Isabel arrived at The Children’s Hospital. They immediately took them to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where a team a doctors where waiting to check on Isabel. After a few test they diagnosed her with Congenital Heart Disease. Jen almost immediately called me and told me I needed to be on the next flight to Denver. During my flight to Denver Isabel had her first ECHO and they waited on me to arrive before transferring her to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU). Truth be told, I was so overwhelmed that I needed to opt for cbd vapes online just to release some stress.

Once we arrived in the CICU the doctors started her on a medicine called Prostaglandins in order to keep her Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) functioning. The PDA allows blood flow between the Aorta and Pulmonary arteries. They were very worried that if they did not keep the PDA open blood would be unable to flow to her lungs. That night one of the doctors sat down with us and showed us pictures explaining what exactly was wrong with Isabel. He told us that they suspect she has a Ventricular Septal Defect with Pulmonary Valve Atresia, also called Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia, and we would need to have a Cardia Catherization in order to confirm her condition.

It was a very busy first 3 days of life for Isabel. There is still a lot more to the story so stay tuned tomorrow for more.

Before I finish up I want to thank Jen’s mom, PJ, for everything she did for us. She came into town for Christmas and the birth most likely thinking she would be helping out for a few days with Addison while we were in the hospital. I know she didn’t expect to spend more than a month in Crested Butte alone with a 3 year old. She also put up with all the crazy that I can put out while I was so stressed and didn’t let it bother her! Thank you PJ.