Child rosy for Valentine's
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By NELLIE KELLY World Staff Writer
2/14/2003
A heartfelt
glow
Josiah Smith was born with a heart defect which left him
with a bluish color. Three surgeries later, he now has a pink glow. Looking on
are his family (from left) Brock, Tiara, Zachariah and Julie.
Heart surgery brings color to
child's cheeks in time for Valentine's Day.
COWETA
-- Josiah Smith was born with those big, blue eyes, but his rosy cheeks and red
lips took four years to perfect.
For the first years of his life, his face was blue because of a heart defect
that caused low oxygen in his blood.
A surgery in January fixed the problem so that he can have his first pink
Valentine's Day instead of being blue.
"After the surgery, I thought, that's not the same child," said
Josiah's father, Brock Smith.
When Josiah was born, his father knew the baby was sick because of his
bluish-purple color, he said.
Soon, the Coweta family found out their son's heart had only one ventricle.
A healthy heart has two muscular lower chambers, called ventricles, that pump
blood, said Dr. Richard Ranne, a children's heart surgeon at
Josiah was born with one side of his heart not developed properly, so the left
side had to pump blood both to the lungs and body, Ranne said.
Holes in his heart allowed low-oxygen blood, which is blue, to mix in the heart
with oxygen-rich red blood.
That mixing causes the blood to be come cyanotic, or blue, and discolors the
skin, Ranne said.
Josiah stayed in the newborn intensive care unit for six weeks, and even when
he went home, he would sweat and breathe hard.
"He suffered a lot as a baby," Smith said. "You could see it in
his face."
As a toddler, he would run short distances, then stop to catch his breath and
rest.
"He learned how far he could push himself," Smith said.
Three operations have been used by heart hospitals for about 15 years to fix
the problem, Ranne said.
Before then, children like Josiah would have gone untreated, lived one or two
years, then died from lack of oxygen or bleeding in the lungs and brain.
The first surgery, when Josiah was 4 months old, put a band around the artery
that goes to Josiah's lungs to restrict blood flow. If too much blood kept
going to his lungs, they would become scarred, and he wouldn't have been
healthy enough for the next two procedures.
When Josiah was almost 3, Ranne performed a hemi-Fontan surgery. The operation
connects the vena cava -- a blood vessel that takes blood back to the heart
from the head and upper chest -- directly to the pulmonary artery so that blood
from the upper body does not mix with blood returning from the lungs.
The third and final surgery in January completed the Fontan procedure by
channeling the blood from the lower body into the lungs, Ranne said.
The two Fontan procedures make all blood from the upper and lower body drain
into the pulmonary arteries and go to the lungs instead of having the red and
blue blood mix.
"Each one is staged to allow the body not to be injured by the congenital
heart problems," Ranne said.
Josiah still has only one ventricle, but the surgeries have allowed his heart
to work better so that he can lead a normal life, Ranne said.
"We have created, as best you can, a normal heart without doing a
transplant," Ranne said.
Josiah runs around the house laughing with his brother and sister.
"He loves to climb," said Josiah's mother, Julie Smith. "He'd
even get on top of the swing set. He has no fear."
Occasionally, his parents ask him to calm down a bit, and they warn the other
children to be careful not to bump Josiah's chest while it heals.
The Smiths are relieved that their son has completed all his scheduled
open-heart surgeries. Dealing with a frequently hospitalized child while
raising two healthy children has been stressful, Julie Smith said.
The entire family has become closer because of dealing with Josiah's illness,
and they've learned to appreciate each healthy day, Julie Smith said.
"We've learned how precious life is," she said, "and how when
you go through trials, you can become stronger."