MckMama

So I am an avid blog reader. And one that I check everyday (other then family blogs of course) is MckMama.com

I started reading MckMama when her son, Stellan was born. He was born with SVT (supraventricular tachycardia) which means that his heart would beat too fast (around 220 beats/min) unless he was on a cocktail of medicines. He was rushed to Boston when he was 4 months old for an ablation (where they try and zap the extra electrical pathway in his heart that causes his heart to beat too fast), but it was unsuccessful because he was so small. It was also hard to complete because his extra pathway was located right on his AV node, which means that there was a good chance they would destroy his AV node, meaning he would have to have a pacemaker for the rest of his life. So they sent him home on more (and higher) doses of medicine. Fast forward to November, the week before his 1st birthday. Stellan stopped responding to the medicines and was becoming sick because of being on all the medicines. They took him to the hospital where it was decided that he would have to have another ablation. He was flown to Boston, and he was taken off all medicines so the doctors could see when they did the surgery where his pathway was exactly. They started detox on Sunday, and had the surgery planned for Thursday. Sadly, Stellan coded on Monday morning. They were able to revive him, but had to do an emergency abaltion. They decided that if they had to, they would destroy his AV node and he would have a pacemaker for the rest of his life. So during the surgery, they had exhausted all options, and the pathway would not go away. Right before the main Dr. decided to destroy the AV node to get rid of the pathway, one of his colleagues suggested that they go through his aorta to try and get rid of it. Now, if they were able to ablate the pathway, they wanted to ablate it for 2-3 seconds to be sure it would be gone. (Oh and the chances of a successful surgery without destroying his AV node was like...20%) SO they go through his aorta, have access to this pathway WITHOUT touching his AV node, and they ablate it...for a whole minute. His surgery was a home run!!

Stellan was curred of his SVT with no lasting effects. He still has an intact AV node, and there was no damages to his aortic valves. There is less than 1% chance that his SVT will ever come back.

So why did I post this? Not quite sure, but I love reading this blog! It is quite a well known blog now, because of Stellan. His parents have been on the news because of him and his mom is just a fantastic blogger (and photographer). They also have 3 other children.

Though the reason I blogged about this now is because MckMama is giving away Lightroom 2 (a photo-editing software) and if you blog about it, you get another entry into the contest. So I'm blogging about it and getting another entry into the contest! I doubt I'll win, but thats ok.

Now you all know about Stellan.

So go check out www.mckmama.com to learn more about them and to enter to win Lightroom 2!

-Andrea