Houston doctors help save baby with unusual heart defect from Mississippi
Houston doctors saved the life of a little Mississippi boy
Ten-month-old Imani was born with a very unusual, but common heart defect. He needed lifesaving surgery and found the right doctors at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston.
HOUSTON - A family from Mississippi has been traveling to Houston to seek life-saving surgeries for their baby. They say surgeons at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital helped save their baby boy’s life.
Ten-month-old Imani Carey has already been through more in the first few months of his life than many people deal with in their lifetime, but he was born into a family of faith and he’s a real fighter.
"He’s my universe. He showed me what not giving up looks like. At two weeks old, I remember him really having a really hard time breathing. So, if I were to raise his little onesie up, I would notice his stomach would go in every time he was breathing in. It just didn't look normal to me, it didn't look like normal newborn behavior," explains Amira Carson, Imani’s mother.
Featured
Two Houston-area men lose pain and pounds thanks to their chiropractor
There’s a second generation of chiropractors who are using high-tech tools to quickly treat the root of the problem. Two Houston-area men discuss how their chiropractor enhanced their quality of life in unexpected ways.
Amira ended up reaching out to her friends in the medical industry and they agreed that she needed to have Imani seen by a doctor. When she couldn’t get an immediate appointment, she ended up taking him to the emergency room, to make sure he was okay. Her motherly instincts were correct.
At first, she says everything checked out okay for her baby. In fact, they were about to be discharged from the hospital, when his first symptoms showed up in the E.R.
"His heart rate just randomly spiked to 250, somewhere between the 250 to 260 range, and they started to say, okay he's trying to tell us something, and they called the cardiology team down. That's when I found out that he had about five different heart defects," says Amira.
"Imani was born with a very unusual, but common heart defect that we deal with called congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries. It's a mouthful. Basically, it means that all of the different components of the heart are there, but they're all mixed up. The ventricles are connected to the wrong arteries, the blue blood and the red blood is not where it's supposed to be. The way I explained it to the parents, is that it's called scrambled heart syndrome," explains Dr. Jorge Salazar, who is a pediatric cardiac surgeon at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital / UT Health.
Featured
Free & low-cost family fun for Spring Break in Houston area
Whether you want to take your family out into nature, to learn in a museum, or take a virtual adventure, you have many free and low-cost options.
He says Imani needed multiple surgeries to save his life. With such intricate surgeries, it would take the right specialist and team to pull it off. That lead Imani's family in Mississippi to bring him all the way to Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston to re-wire his heart.
"If you can imagine, if you're born with a heart that has all of the correct parts, but they're all mixed up. And what we did is something called a double switch, and the double switch means that the arteries were hooked up backwards, so we took the arteries off and fixed them. That includes moving the delicate coronary arteries, which are like the gas lines to the heart, they're about a millimeter each. So we did the arterial switch, and then we restricted the blood flow to his lungs, with what's called a pulmonary artery band to treat his heart failure," explains Dr. Salazar.
Amira was beyond thankful Dr. Salazar could do this, a huge relief, but her baby’s recovery was tough on her.
"Just the weening, cutting off the ventilator, breathing on his own, and all the different milestones you have to reach during post-op before getting discharged. That was the most difficult part, just watching him, he was so young," reflects Amira. Then a few months later, another major surgery was needed. "That's when I took the band off, so that we would put normal connection to the lungs, and we closed the hole inside of his heart. He had a big hole inside his heart, but there was one remaining thing to do because his veins, in addition to the arteries, were hooked up to the heart backwards. We also did something called an atrial switch," states Dr. Salazar.
All incredibly complicated and if that wasn't enough, Imani and his entire family ended up catching COVID-19 and had to be closely monitored. "Faith" helped them get through it all. Fitting, since that’s the actual meaning of Imani's name.
"His whole entire journey has been a testament of my faith and not giving up and just pushing through when things seemed like they were just impossible to remain faithful," smiles Amira. She and her family are beyond thankful for their medical team at Memorial Hermann. "At this point we're pretty much family. To me, that is how we were treated while we were there and even though the surgeries were six months apart, when we came back for his next surgery, all of the nurses remembered us, the doctors there really made me feel like his survival and his quality of life was their number one priority," says Amira.
Featured
Rebounding, children on the pitch, a time management app and a lifesaving wedding for recovery from COVID-19
Fox 26 in Focus Rebound and Recovery shares stories of resilience and resolve as people continue to move forward during the pandemic.
Her son’s surgeon says he felt the connection, as well.
"We feel so lucky to be able to care for other people's children and give them hope. Frankly, I'm a parent and most of us on the team are parents. We love our children desperately, we would do anything for our children, so we essentially adopt other people's children, care for them as our own, and make smart decisions. It’s very simple. I know what I would do for my own child. I'd give them every possible chance to have a good life, to have a life better than mine, and so I sensed that commitment and love in Imani’s mom, and I just wanted to give him exactly what she wanted to give him. It was kind of against all odds (for Imani). He had COVID, they’re living in another state, and he had a very complex heart defect, but Amira’s love for him is very sincere. It's infectious actually, and they certainly got my attention. I was very, very honored to be able to help him," smiles Dr. Salazar.
Dr. Salazar goes on to say he’s thankful for the entire medical team, who helped pull off the surgeries for Imani. "It was a very big team, and I want to give a shout out to my amazing nurses, my amazing therapists, all of the doctors on the team, our scrub techs, the talented people who run the heart-lung machine, and the anesthesiologists. Everybody is so important. Every person plays a critical role, and it's because all of those people come together and make it personal," explains Dr. Salazar.
Imani is doing great and reaching all of the typical milestones for a baby his age. Dr. Salazar says Imani now has a normal heart and should go on to live a healthy life.
It is quite a team at the hospital. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has given Children’s Heart Institute at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital the three-star rating, the highest possible distinction.
For more information, click here.