written by Chelsea Katelman, Jackson’s mother
Jackson Andrew Katelman was born the morning of May 25, 2015. The birth went just as planned. The amount of love that you instantly feel for your little one is unexplainable. We were so blessed to be Jackson’s parents and welcome him into the world. As far as we knew, Jackson was healthy and happy. I’m sure as most of you know, the next 24 hours were full of nurse and doctor visits to check on little Jackson. Every check with the nurse and doctor went great. We had a healthy little boy!
It was finally time for our family to be discharged and head home to start this amazing life of parenthood. We were being discharged during a shift change a new nurse came into the room to check Jackson’s vitals one more time. Everything was checking out to be fine until the nurse listened to Jackson’s heart. I saw the look on the nurses’ face and I instantly knew that something wasn’t right. Of course, she couldn’t say anything and we had to wait to see the doctor. The doctor came in and said we were no longer going to be discharged today. We then had to wait for a tech from Children’s to come and run an ECHO ultrasound on his heart to see what was wrong.
As a mother and a first-time mother, it is never easy to hear that something is wrong with your baby. It took everything in me to be strong for my little guy. My husband was calm and supportive. Jackson seemed healthy, I couldn’t understand how there could be something wrong.
The tech arrived and ran the tests. Then we waited for what seemed like forever to get the results that day. It came back that Jackson had a Partial Atrioventricular Septal Defect. He has a hole in the wall between the ventricles near the middle of the heart. One of the valves does not close completely and allows blood to leak backward. This also increases the amount of blood that is pumped to the lungs. The extra blood being pumped to the lungs forces his heart and lungs to work hard. (Please keep in mind I am not a doctor and this is the best way that I know how to describe his heart defect.)
Within a few trips to the cardiologists at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, I immediately knew that Jackson would be in great hands! Every time we go to see Dr. Hsu, he is very reassuring. Dr. Hsu was thinking we would be able to hold off on the open heart surgery until Jackson was 2 or 3 years old. We recently had a visit on December 4th and found out that there is too much blood flowing through the middle of his heart. Dr. Hsu said that it is supposed to be under 2.0 and Jackson was at 3.5. Jackson will now be having it open heart surgery in April 2016.
Even in light of Jackson’s heart issue, he is a very happy boy. You would have no idea that he has a heart defect and for that I am very thankful! Jackson is starting to sit, play, talk (babble), and smile all the time. We are very happy and thankful to be part of the Heart Hero family and we appreciate you letting us share Jackson’s story!
Mike, Chelsea, and Jackson