Samuel in the News!

 With every hour, with every ounce of special formula, and with every heartbeat, seven-week-old Samuel is bettering his chances fur survival.
        He arrived May 7 (1999) -- five weeks premature at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital. Now he is the smallest heart-transplant candidate in Michigan.
        Samuel’s parents are Downriver residents. Steve and Sue and their three-year-old son Steven have requested their last name not be used to allow them to stay out of the limelight to fully concentrate on this life-and-death situation.
        Samuel’s heart has a small right pumping chamber. Blood flow to his lungs is blocked, and the blood supply to his heart muscle is unreliable. The condition is know as pulmonary atresia with intact septum and stenotic coronary arteries -- a name almost longer in length than he is.
        “He needs a suitable heart as soon as possible,” the physician said.
        According to the baby’s parents, Susan went into early labor and was rushed to the hospital where X-rays showed the infant was turned and not in the birth canal.
        The baby was delivered by cesarean section at 3:30 p.m. on May 7, weighing four pounds, five ounces.
        Steve recalled that he was able to see his son and hold him for a few minutes until the nursing staff took the baby to be cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket.
        “It took longer than I thought,” he said. “When I asked the staff neonatologist, Dr. J. Hernandez, he said that a cardiac expert from Children’s was coming to look at Samuel because he was having difficulty breathing.”
        At first, doctors thought that an angioplasty procedure might be the answer. A cardiac catheterization to visualize the heart’s anatomy and measure internal blood pressures, gave them a clearer but less promising picture.
        Susan and Steve met with a pediatric cardiac team.
        “Our options were spelled out, and we were made fully aware of the risk and the future for Samuel as a heart transplant patient,” Steve said.
        When Walters told Steve: “if it was my son, I would seek a donor,” the parents knew what their course should be.
        Walters, along with transplant cardiologist Dr. T.P. Singh and Karen Kaisner, a registered nurse and cardiac transplant coordinator, are supervising Samuel’s round-the-clock care.
        Samuel’s name was placed on the National Donor Registry list, and his name, blood type and weight were placed into a database with hundreds of other children - all waiting for hearts.
        According to Walters, Samuel is listed as “1A” priority, the most critical classification. “Every day is precious for Samuel and his family,” Walters said. “Without a heart, Samuel’s chance for survival is very poor.
        “Unfortunately, it’s a race against the clock since as many as half the children this size on the transplant list may die waiting for a heart.”
        “One very brave family will be making a very difficult situation when the time comes,” he said.
        Samuel’s family is raising awareness for organ donation, and Steve said he and his wife have already discussed what they will do if their son does not receive a heart in time.
        “We know we will donate his organs, in hopes of saving other lives,” he said.
        The parents have faith a donor will be found. With family and friends near at hand, they have been able to maintain a fairly normal life for their oldest son.
        “One of us goes to the hospital to be with Samuel, while the other stays home with Steven, and then we switch in the afternoon,” Steve said.
        Not only has the church congregation where the couple attends services rallied around the family, but, said Steve, his employer has been wonderful about allowing him time off work.
        “We have insurance, and we know bills are growing, but that is just something we have to address later,” he said. “Right now, Samuel needs all our attention.”
        Kelly Scheer, a public-relations spokeswoman for the hospital, said the search for the donor is nationwide. Members of the Children’s team will be ready to transplant a heart from anywhere just as soon as they receive word.
        “We are close to an airport, and the hospital has a helicopter pad,” Scheer added.
        “And morn and dad now have beepers.”
        On Monday, Samuel weighed a whopping six pounds, five ounces and -- according to his father -- “is eating like a horse.”
        Scheer said a heart transplant was performed at Children’s seven months ago on an infant girl from Warren.
        “She was 12 weeks old, and is nine-and-a-half-months old now -- and doing fine,” Scheer said.

(Reprinted with permission of Heritage Newspapers.)

On the mend After 8 hours of surgery, Baby Sammy is recovering By Pat Andrews   Nearly 3 months old, Samuel was born with a heart defect leaving him with a small chance for survival. On July 7, at Children's Hospital of Michigan, the Downriver resident received a new heart and is expected to live a long, healthy life. Right, a Children's Hospital of Michigan nurse holds Samuel.

Dr. Henry Walters wasn’t talking apples and oranges at a press conference Thursday morning.
        It was more like walnuts and plums.
        Walnut, as in the size of Baby Samuel’s heart, and plum, as in the size of a new, donated heart.
        Walters, vice chief of cardiovascular surgery at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, and Dr. T.P. Singh, transplant cardiologist at the hospital, successfully performed surgery July 7 on the two-month-old Downriver resident, the smallest person to receive a heart transplant in Michigan.
        Baby Sammy, as he is called by hospital staff, was born May 7 to Steve and Susan, who have requested that their last name not be used to ensure their privacy and that of their child.
        The baby was delivered about three weeks early at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital in what was termed a normal pregnancy.
        Dr. Jaime Hernandez, a neonatologist, suspected something was not quite right. At nine Further testing revealed a heart defect which left Sammy with a small right pumping chamber, blockage of bleed flow to the lungs and an unreliable blood supply to the heart muscle.
        Sammy’s parents were consulted about the infant’s options for survival, and a mutual decision was made to place the infant on the national donor registry.
        Thus began the wait.
        When a call came the night of July 6, the surgical team began to prepare. Before final plans could be implemented, a “go” signal had to come from Dr. Robert Higgins, surgical director of thoracic organ transplantation for Henry Ford Health System.
        It was Higgins who made the trip to a southern state to examine the available heart and decide if it would be a match. Sammy’s parents were told the donor was approximately the same age as their son.
        Walters said a transplant heart three times the size of Sammy’s would have been acceptable, but the donated heart was close to the infant’s own proportions.
        Steve and Susan spent more than five hours holding their son before surgery, not knowing what the outcome would be.
        “It could have been the last time, or a beginning of life,” Steve said. “We had no way of knowing.”
        The surgery began at about 5 a.m. and ended eight hours later.
        Walters and Singh said they were waiting for Higgins in the operating room with Sammy’s chest cavity open and ready for the new heart, which went in quite quickly.
        “We then did reconstruction of some of the septum and stenotic coronary arteries, using some of Sammy’s own tissue,” Walters said.
        “We expect everything to be working fully, and we expect him to live a long and healthy life.”
        Immediately after the surgery, Sammy was given the first of the anti-rejection drugs which he will take for the rest of his life, along with other medication he will take daily.”
        Steve and Susan hope to take their son home early this week.
        “I never even thought about making funeral plans when Sammy was so ill,” Steve said. “I knew that God would find a way.”
        The name of the donor will not be revealed for sometime, and then only by mutual consent, according to Walters. That is standard policy.
        Steve said he and his wife are preparing a letter to send to the family of the infant, to express their gratitude.
        “There really is no way to say ‘thank you’ enough,” he said. “I can’t imagine what the other family must have gone through to make such a decision. I am thankful to God I didn’t have to make the same decision.”
        After Sammy goes home, he will be required to make weekly visits to the hospital for about six months, then monthly and then semiannually.
        Sammy is drinking from a bottle filled with vitamins.
        Susan decided not to breastfeed as she did with her oldest son, Steven, three-and-a-half-years old, because of the energy required of the baby.
        He has gained weight since birth (when he weighed in at just four pounds, three ounces), and is now up to seven pounds, two ounces.
        The heart defect contributed to Sammy’s low birth weight, Steve said.
        Steve also expressed his gratitude to the surgical team and the nursing staff.
        “When the doctors were attaching the arteries, it was like hairs splitting hairs,” he said.
        Sammy is the seventh patient to receive a heart as part of Michigan’s only collaborative pediatric heart transplantation program between Children’s and Henry Ford hospitals.
        The first known infant transplant was performed in 1984.
        “We can’t wait to bring him home,” Steve said. “His big brother has been waiting a long time for this arrival.”

        Three-month-old Samuel was born with a heart defect leaving him with a small right pumping chamber, blockage of blood flow to the lungs and an unreliable blood supply to the heart muscle. Samuel's best chance of survival was a heart transplant.

(Reprinted with permission of Heritage Newspaper.)

Copyright © 2000 'Claine's Corner . All rights reserved.
Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form without permission.