BRYAN, Ohio — Commissioners in Williams County have officially declared the week of Feb. 7-14 Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) Awareness Week. The declaration is in no small part thanks to the work of heart families who live there.
"Every 1 out of 100 babies are born with it," heart mom Amanda Hoover said. "Our story first began eight years ago with my son being first diagnosed as a heart baby, spending 36 days in the NICU."
Hoover's son, Bryson, is now eight years old. He's been through a lot in less than a decade.
"He came six weeks early. A very easy natural labor. Then, once he got here, they couldn't get his oxygen sats up to where it needed to be so they pumped, hand pump oxygen into his face until the transfer team could come get him," Hoover said.
Bryson would spend 36 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Hoover said doctors described her son as an enigma. It took teamwork to figure out what was wrong.
"The heart doctors, the lung doctors, neither one of them agreed it was their area," Hoover said. "Come to find out his diagnosis was in between but it is a congenital heart defect."
Doctors diagnosed Bryson with Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (TAPVR).
The Centers for Disease Control describes it as:
A birth defect of the heart. In a baby with TAPVR, oxygen-rich blood does not return from the lungs to the left atrium. Instead, the oxygen-rich blood returns to the right side of the heart. Here, oxygen-rich blood mixes with oxygen-poor blood. This causes the baby to get less oxygen than is needed to the body. To survive with this defect, babies with TAPVR usually have a hole between the right atrium and the left atrium (an atrial septal defect) that allows the mixed blood to get to the left side of the heart and pumped out to the rest of the body. Some children can have other heart defects along with TAPVR, aside from the atrial septal defect.
Bryson would need life-saving surgery. After hours of waiting, Hoover said the surgeon came to speak with her.
"He came out from the door, shook his head and said 'We're not done yet,'" Hoover said.
Hoover said the surgeon explained Bryson would need a full repair. Once again, she was left to wait as doctors worked to save her son.
"You take away the worry for those children," Hoover said. "He didn't have anything to worry about, but we did. He just had to get better."
Both surgeries were a success. Bryson's condition was fully repaired.
Since then, the Hoover family has been giving back. They deliver blankets to Parkview Bryan Hospital in hopes of raising awareness and making sure newborns there are tested for CHD.
"The more awareness that brings about, maybe more people will listen," Hoover said. "More funding will come, more advancement, and eventually, hopefully, not an 18-year-old will just find out about their heart issue."
The Hoovers meet with heart families each year after the Williams County proclamation. For 2024, they gathered for a group photo at Spangler Candy World in Bryan.