Christian’s Story

written by Wendy, Christian’s mom

At 1:50pm on August 7th, 2013, Christian Galon Simpson decided to make his grand entrance into this world. After birth he cried, took a big swallow of amniotic fluid and his oxygen levels began to drop. He was rushed over to NICU and a breathing tube was inserted with full oxygen to bring his levels up, but still nothing.

The doctors realized they were dealing with more then just him swallowing fluid and decided to do an echocardiogram. The moment the team of cardiologists came in to talk to my husband, Bruce, and I, we were not prepared for what they were about to say. Our beautiful little son who was only about two hours old, was going to need open-heart surgery. Hearing those words from the doctor made my heart sink.

The two big arteries in his heart are reversed. Christian was also diagnosed with VSD- Ventricular Septal Defect ( a defect in the ventricular septum, the wall dividing the left and right ventricles of the heart) and DORV- Double Outlet Right Ventricle (a congenital heart disease in which the aorta rises from the right ventricle (the chamber of the heart that pumps blood to the lungs), instead of from the left ventricle (the normal pumping chamber to the body). The doctors stated he was the “luckiest and unluckiest” little boy that they have known. Where the holes in his heart were placed still allowed his heart to pump and function. Had they not been where they were, he would not be with us today.

They were wanting to do surgery the following Monday after he was born but due to a spot on his lower part of his brain that showed bleeding they didn’t want to operate due to the anti-coagulants they use for open heart surgery. In the mean time he had continued to gain more strength which is what we wanted in order for him to have a speedy recovery.

Finally, after three weeks of increasing his food intake and gaining weight, the bleeding in his brain had finally stopped. The time had finally come to get Christian in for his open-heart surgery and the date was set for August 30th, 2013. The morning of his surgery my husband and I helped give him a bath and then wrapped him up in a prayer shawl that had been given to him from a close family friend. As we made the trek down the hall from the NICU and over to Children’s Hospital we were filled with so many emotions. We knew God would protect our son and look after the doctors performing the surgery.

When he went in for surgery, so many emotions and thoughts were running through our mind but we had the utmost trust in the surgeons working on our son. We had an amazing support system along with us that morning from family, friends and also our pastor and his wife. The minutes seemed like hours. I did not want to leave the waiting room in fear that I would miss a call from the nurses updating us on how the surgery was going. I remember when I got the call that Christian had been taken off of bypass and was responding well my eyes filled up with tears and hit my knees thanking God for looking after everyone in that operating room.

When Dr. Hammel came into the room to let us know how the surgery had went I had asked him if I could give him a hug. He looked down and nodded his head and I gave him the biggest hug,  thanking him for saving our son’s life.

I remember walking into Christian’s room after he was taken up to PICU and the sight was so overwhelming. There lay our son, with all this tubes and monitors hooked up to him. His body was pale gray and it was so scary wondering if he was going to pull through all of this and being scared because I worried about how much pain my poor baby was in. I slept in the room that night with him so I could be close and I prayed. Six days later, Christian was released to go home.

After we had finally brought our son home things were still a bit chaotic. I had to give him shots twice a day and a home health nurse had come a few times a week just to make sure he was gaining weight ok. It’s like once we got home, Christian knew and was the perfect baby.

For the past year, we had been noticing a few developmental delays which we chalked up to Christian going through what he did when he was first born, and figured he’ll hit those milestones when he is ready. He didn’t start walking until he was almost 18 months old. We also noticed he hadn’t really been talking much either. We had a follow up appointment with a developmental specialist where he proceeded to tell us that Christian had a mild case of Cerebral Palsy due to the bleeding on his brain when he was first born.

This came to quite a shock to my husband and I since things were going wonderful with Christian’s growth, behavior, etc. We thought with him walking on his tip toes on his right foot was just his way of learning how to walk and keep his balance. The Dr. recommended that a Speech Therapist and a Physical Therapist come meet with Christian twice a month to help with his walking and with his talking. The PT tried many things to get him to walk flat on his foot but to no avail. She recommended we take him to see a Pediatric Orthopedic Dr. where this Dr. also confirmed the same thing, that our son did indeed have a mild case of Cerebral Palsy.

She had Christian get fitted for a “boot” that he has to wear to help train his foot. Although Christian is quite the Houdini and escapes from it every chance he can!!

We have called Christian our Little Superman ever since he was born with what he has gone through. Now, he will be two on August 7 and is a typical normal little boy. He loves playing with his John Deere tractors, riding on our Gator and running around terrorizing his older sister! If you look at him you would never know what all he had went through during the first month of his life. He is a tough young man and lets nothing get him down or in his way. Thank you for honoring our miracle man as Heart Hero of the Month. God bless!

Bruce, Wendy, Kaitlynn and Christian Simpson