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Our Kids - Meet Blake

A pre-natal ultrasound would forever change the life of little Blake. Because of his father's abnormal heart condition - he was missing a heart valve - Blake's mom, Jenni, scheduled an ultrasound at 35 weeks to determine if this abnormality would be passed down to her unborn child.

Blake

Blake, Hypoplastic left heart syndrome

Unfortunately, test results revealed that Blake had an enlarged heart and in fact, would be born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a congenital heart defect where the entire left side of the heart is underdeveloped.

Jenni was scheduled for a C-section delivery at 38 weeks but Blake decided that he wanted to greet the world one week early.

He was born on August 20, 2004 and after cuddling with his mother for a few minutes, he was rushed to SickKids by the Acute Care Transport Services (ACTS) team to begin diagnosis and treatment. The ACTS team is a group of highly skilled nurse-clinicians, respiratory therapists and physicians trained in emergency transport medicine.

Babies born with HLHS become ashen, have rapid and difficult breathing patterns, and have difficulty feeding. Although the defect is not entirely correctable, some babies can be treated through a series of operations or through heart transplantation. This particular heart defect is often fatal within the first days of life if left untreated.

Blake had his first open-heart surgery at four days old and spent time trying to recover in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). He suffered a heart attack three days after surgery and as a result, was placed on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a machine for heart and lung patients who experience cardiac or respiratory failure. Blake's chest was kept open for nearly four weeks and he was intubated for nearly nine weeks.

His second heart attack came in November 2004 and in December, he underwent a second open-heart surgery. His heart had difficulty pumping blood and soon after, Blake suffered a stroke.

After being at SickKids for nearly five months, Blake finally went home on January 26, 2005. His blood pressure dropped drastically one day and Blake was rushed back to the place where he had spent the majority of his life. He was instantly given heart medication that ended up saving his life.

Blake is now almost two years old. He continues to take a variety of medication and is fed by a gastronomy tube that is placed in his stomach. He will undergo a third operation on his heart in 2007.

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