Susie Hinds: A Mother’s Story of Survival
A newborn baby should go home from the hospital with her parents. But Greta Hinds couldn’t. At least not yet.
Greta was born with dextrocardia with situs inversus, transposition of the great vessels and a ventricular septal defect further complicated by a malrotation of the small intestine. In lay terms, the tip of her heart points to the right side of her chest instead of the left side and the heart chambers are a mirror image; situs inversus indicates that her heart and stomach are on the right-hand side in her abdominal cavity. At birth, the two major arteries carrying blood out of her heart, the pulmonary artery, which sends blood to the lungs to be oxygenated, and the aorta, sending the oxygenated blood to the rest of the body, were reversed. As a result of this critical transposition, her oxygen levels could become critically low. The ventricular septal defect is commonly called a hole in the heart, but it allowed Greta’s blood to mix so that some oxygen-rich blood could reach other areas of her body.
Susie and Dan Hinds were in for a mid-term ultrasound. “It’s the point in pregnancy at which the baby’s sex is usually discernible,” said Susie. “The ultrasound technician kept going over the heart, then brought in a second technician, then a perinatologist. At that point, we suspected something was wrong.
“As a result of learning the probability of these congenital heart defects while Greta was still in utero, we were God-driven to learn all we could about them and obtain additional medical opinions. The American Heart Association provided excellent, reliable information, and we understood that more information creates better long-term outcomes. We’re a family of strong faith, but this was our first child after several miscarriages, and this knowledge made us hold on that much harder to our faith.”
Shortly after birth, Greta was transferred to St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where her first surgery at one week was to correct the intestinal malrotation. At four weeks, showing signs of congestive heart failure, she underwent surgery for a pulmonary band and a PDA ligation. “It was supposed to be a simple surgery, but she crashed and we thought we had lost her, but the medical staff stabilized her,” Susie related. “We took her home and worked hard to get her weight up to ten pounds, the goal weight for open heart surgery. She was five months old when the arterial switch was performed and the ventricular septal defect was closed, and she came through with flying colors. She left the hospital without a feeding tube and could take a full bottle for the first time!”
The size of the human heart can be compared to the size of the fist. Imagine the size of a -five-month-old baby’s heart. “It’s mindboggling that the medical community can perform these microsurgeries, and the prognosis for babies born with these rare conditions is improving every day,” Susie noted. “Greta is a normal teenager, just with a scar. At her last medical checkup, the doctor told her to go live a full life. I want her to be fully empowered to do that, and telling her survivor story at the Heart Ball on January 25 is her chance to tell others that who may feel dire, frightened or abnormal at one point that they can become normal and healthy with treatment and information.”
Susie serves on the Heart Ball committee and is reflective of the ways the American Heart Association provides crucial information about heart disease and stroke education. “At some point in your life, you will have some connection to heart disease or stroke,” she concluded. “You don’t get to choose it. It chooses you. You must be educated about prevention and treatment to have a good outcome.” ■
