Cassidy Skogen (Photo: courtesy of the Skogen family)
A mended heart
Right from the start, newborn Cassidy Skogen sounded congested, her chest rattling as she breathed. So at her one-year wellness checkup, her pediatrician recommended an ultrasound, which revealed a hole between the upper chambers of her heart. Not to worry, the doctor assured Cassidy’s parents, Brian and Rebekah: a child with this condition usually outgrows it, and the hole closes up on its own. However, Cassidy would need regular exams.
For five years, the Skogens made the trip from their southwestern Minnesota home to Sioux Falls, South Dakota—110 miles each way—for Cassidy’s regular checkups.
Then last year, Cassidy’s doctor grew concerned that the hole sometimes looked open, sometimes closed. With a scope, he determined that the hole was larger than first thought, and that without surgery, it could become life-threatening.
He referred the family to James St. Louis, M.D., a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital, explaining that University surgeons perform this surgery regularly.
“The fact that he would recommend another surgeon instilled a lot of confidence in his diagnosis and the U,” says Rebekah Skogen, who recounts doing “the most difficult and painful thing we’ve ever done—admitting our 6-year-old for open-heart surgery.”
After the experience, the Skogens have only high praise for University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital, commending everyone from St. Louis and Steve McDonald, an acute care pediatric nurse practitioner, to the child-life specialists and the custodial staff.
“We were treated as though nothing was more important to the people there than giving the best possible care to our little girl. Words cannot express the gratitude we feel,” Skogen says.
Today, Cassidy is a lively first-grader—just like her classmates.
