Aaron
A Heart the Size of an Acorn
Letter of Praise
Sara wrote a letter praising Aaron's surgeon, Dr. Gustafson, in support of his nomination for the Children's Miracle Network Outstanding Caregiver award.
The letter is excerpted below:
When I heard that WVU Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Gustafson was being nominated for an “Outstanding Caregiver” award, I was excited to be given an opportunity to show my support by sharing my family’s experience with “Dr. Gus.”
Our twin boys – Aaron and Ryan – were born six week premature. Knowing they would be premature due to complications I experienced throughout the pregnancy, my husband and I were mentally prepared for all kinds of potential problems upon their arrival.
However, it was as if the floor fell out from under us when we learned on their second day of life that Aaron had a congenital heart defect, Tetralogy of Fallot. It was explained to us that he was a ‘pink tet’ and wouldn’t require surgery until he was closer to nine months old. He would have time to come home and gain some weight. Unfortunately, over the next several days his condition quickly deteriorated. We were introduced to Dr. Gustafson when Aaron was around 10 days old.
Dr. Gus explained what needed to happen. Aaron needed to gain weight and a shunt would be put in to buy him some time to grow before he would undergo open heart surgery. On his 13th day, it became apparent that Aaron was not going to hang on long enough to allow that to happen. Although he had dropped to only three pounds, Dr. Gus decided that attempting a full repair was our only hope. He explained to us that because Aaron’s heart was the size of an acorn, there were no shunts small enough to place in his heart. It was uncertain if they could get him on the bypass machine, and his chances of surviving open heart surgery were 50-50. These are not things you want to hear as a brand new parent but we appreciated his straightforward honesty.
The next morning, I got to hold Aaron for a little while before he was wheeled out of the NICU in his isolette. Watching as he was taken for surgery, I completely fell apart until it occurred to me that Dr. Gus had not given up. As long as Dr. Gus continued to work on him, his family couldn’t give up on him either.
Several hours later, we were told that Aaron was being brought back up and it appeared that everything had gone well. We were warned before seeing him that his chest was left open and not to be alarmed. Over the next several days, we watched as Aaron healed from his surgery. On Easter Sunday, Dr. Gus came in after church to close Aaron’s chest back up. For the first time, we truly began to feel that we were out of the woods.
Our family is complete because of Dr. Gus, and we are forever grateful to him.
Thank you for taking the time to read our story. We sincerely hope that Dr. Gustafson will be awarded for the miracles he facilitates every day.
Sincerely,
Sara Connors