I was born August 8, 1961, in Jamestown Ny, which on in Western Ny State, out near Buffalo, and the Great lakes, Lake Erie, to be precise I was born with a condition known as Transposition of the great arteries (TGA). At that time very few children who were born with it survived for any length of time. Here is a link with information about TGA: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/heartdefects/TGA.html However, in the late 1950's in Canada ,a Doctor Named William Mustard developed whats known as the Mustard Procedure, to reverse the transposition. As far as we can tell, there was no one doing the Mustard in the US at the time, at least not successfully. They went in and opened the hole in my heart and said at the time that's all they could do, and sent me home, extensively to die. I was a blue baby for the first 4 years of my life, living only because of the hole in my heart leaking oxygenated blood to the rest of my system. I have read of several of you having been a blue baby. A doctor at Children's Hospital, in Buffalo NY, went to Canada to learn the procedure . I was operated on, in 1964. To our best knowledge I am the first to have the Mustard in the US and survive. Over the years I not only survived, but continued to grow, and thrive. My brother who is two years younger than me is perfectly healthy.I had to to have the Mustard again in the early 1970’s because they said I outgrew the work done the first time. I did almost all the things normal kids do riding bikes, and the like, However, I didn't do sports, They wouldn't let me, and frankly I wasn't interested, so that worked out fine. In 1981, I graduated High School, with a regular diploma like everyone else. In 1982 I got my first pacemaker. They explained to me, that my heart was beating too slow when I rested or was sleeping, so it was put in as a on demand thing. Since then I've had many pacers in the last 30 years.In 1985 I married ,and we now have raised 4 healthy children, my oldest is 24, youngest is 12, with the 2 girls in between. Almost 3 years ago we felt it was time for some major changes and some opportunities opened up for us to relocate here to Virginia, from NY State. We took our time and opened a new business down here, and we are doing well here. I am also doing much better down here, the change in weather helped, not to mention the new Dr. I have here specializes in adults with congenital heart defects, in other words me. The doctor here was impressed with my condition and how good, I am doing. That is until this summer. In January of 2012, I had a new pacer put in, Everything went ok. It had healed fine, but by early summer the site didn't look good. In the end they finally pulled the pacemaker and leads out. That was in early September. Since then I have been “working without a net” so to speak. However I will have a new pace put in probably, probably after the first of the year. My doctor has been surprised at how well I've done without it. If you would like more information about my history, or my condition , please feel free to get in touch with me. Of course you can Google TGA, and Dr. Mustard, and find a wide range of information about my condition and the Mustard procedure.
Ken Lawson
Ken Lawson
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