Gabe, in the Beginning…

October 8th, 2002 was the greatest day of my life.  It was the day I officially met my son Gabe for the first time outside of an ultrasound.    (I am also fortunate to have gotten a repeat of that day 3 years later when I met my second son, Nate, but I’ll save that for another story.)

Meeting Gabe

When people told me “Man,  your life is about to change…”  there was no conceivable way for me to fully comprehend the meaning of what they were telling me.  “Changed” is to subtle of a word.  “Metamorphosized” is slightly better, but still somehow inadequate.

Parents will know what I mean.

Little did we know that even at birth his heart was not quite right.  But thankfully not only was his heart not quite right, his noggin was on the fritz a bit too.  We figured the brain part out much earlier and it probably saved his life.

ADHD to the Rescue…

Even  as a toddler Gabe had some weird little quirks.   All his Hot Wheels needed to be in a perfect line, he would not stop yelling  “Uh Oh!” if a cabinet in the kitchen was even slightly open. Things had to be just so. One time his grandmother had to go across the street and upright the neighbors garbage can that the trash truck had knocked over. He was instant and he was only about a year and a half old.

As the years past these little odd behaviors transformed into “behavior issues”.   I am sadden to say that much of the time it was  truly difficult to spend time with him when we did not fully understand what was going on. It was hard on him, and it was hard in us.

After talks with our pediatrician and some other kid docs he was diagnosed with ADHD.

As that term is thrown around a lot these days I was initially  reluctant to accept that diagnosis.  But the more I read and researched (thanks in large part to my wife Denyse who is a Google fiend) the more I resigned myself to the fact that ADHD was at least *in part* could account  for what was going on with my son.

After behavior and notional modifications alone were not enough, we started down Ritalin Road.  After trying this one and that one for what seemed like an eternity we finally found a combination of diet, medication and parenting style that seems to be really working.  At least for now.

These days Gabe will not leave my side, and it absolutely determined to be “just like Daddy.”  I love every minute of it and will savior these moments as long as I can as I suspect when the tween to teen years hit “Daddy” will no longer be anywhere near as cool as (at least Gabe thinks) I am now.

Don’t get me wrong – sometimes like any normal kid he is a giant pain in the  ass and some days are better than others.

But then there was the EKG.

About 6 weeks ago one of his docs (not sure which one) said that we should get an EKG since whenever anyone is taking a stimulant ADHD medication it is prudent to make sure the heart is functioning normally.

Well, as you might have guessed Gabe’s heart was not functioning normally. 

If Gabe did not have ADHD we would have not know about his heart condition, so in a very odd but real sense – ADHD was a blessing.

What’s He Got?

It seemed like after every test he took they kept finding more and more wrong.  That might not be fully accurate, but that is what it felt like to me.

Getting hooked up

So he was initially diagnosed with Wolf – Parkinson – White disease, or WPW.  What that means is there is an extra electrical connection in his heart that screws up the beats.  There is a kind of WPW that does not pose any future problems and can be essentially ignored. 

Gabe does not have that kind.

His kind *CAN* lead to a life threatening event even if he presents as asymptomatic.  The word “can” was enough to freak me out considerably.  So that sucks.

What doesn’t suck is it can be fixed. But that meant more tests.

The next test (a heart echo) showed that he also has a small hole in his heart.  F’ing dandy- a hole. If that wasn’t enough one of his valves is not exactly where it should be. 

Again, that just f’ing sucks.

That was the bad news.

And Now for the Good News….

It can be fixed.

The procedure is call an ablation– not a surgery because they don’t actually cut. The can go in with catheters through the neck and thigh and tinker with his ticker.  They fry the extra electrical connection (solving the WPW) and thy stick a cork in the hole.  (At this point they are only scoping out the valve to see if it will require further action.)

As any father would, I would gladly give him my heart if it would help. But I also confident it would never come to that.

The procedure is tomorrow al UCLA and they say it is minor.

I say when it is your kid there is no such thing as minor.

And Now the Hard Part…

I won’t  fool myself into thinking tomorrow will be easy.  It won’t.

It will be very, very hard.

My mind will not be on fitness, but on health-  my son’s health.  I will be at my Gabe’s  side until the make me leave (that will be about the time they are sedating my wife.)

Thankfully we will have my parents and her parents there to support us.  Having family around, while normally annoying, is quite comforting in this situation.

Gabe is currently happy as a calm – as usual.  He knows just a little of what is coming tomorrow  as we have tried to prepare him a bit, but I’m sure he be pissed when he figures out he can’t eat all morning.  I know that would piss me off.

Gabe is a tough kid with a tremendous heart (no pun intended).  He is strong and will be just fine.  His heart can take it fine, I just hope mine can.

So that’s it.  Tomorrow please just send Gabe some good thoughts, we can use all we can get. 

I will update the blog after the surgery procedure to tell you how great he is doing.

Joshua Carter
Gabe’s Dad