Baby Castiel- Heart Warrior

Hi my name is Nicole and Castiel is my new baby nephew.

My brother Logan and wife Emily, lovingly and excitedly welcomed a beautiful baby boy 3 weeks prematurely due to some complications that arose near the end of Emily’s pregnancy.

After a long labour, Castiel John Blackstock made his appearance on Thursday June 13th at 11:12 AM. Weighing in at 5.97 lbs, 19.5 inches tall and a perfect little head of dark brown hair.

Soon it was discovered that baby Cas was having a hard time breathing and he had dangerously low blood sugars. They whisked him away to the NICU where they started multiple days of testing.

24 hours later tests showed that Castiel has a hole in his heart, a heart murmur and hypoglycaemia. The next 72 hours were important to get his sugars stabilized.

By Saturday they stabilized and he was removed off oxygen as our warrior Castiel was breathing on his own!

However, that evening his sugars took a dip and once again needing intervention to help stabilize.

Monday another bump in the road and Cas needed to be put back on oxygen as he was having several large drops in his heart rate.

Tuesday night they took the line out of his belly button and put it in his hand as he then needed to go under the Billi lights.

Started IV meds and continued with testing.

Thursday his brain ultrasound came back showing two abnormalities, he has a bit of a bleed on the left (that can be common but due to moms history with eds, pots and multiple brain aneurysms, they're going to closely watch) and a small cyst that's also common. Also his murmur is back, so the cardiologist did an echo to make sure structures were good.

So on top of having hypoglycaemia, a left side brain bleed and right side cyst. We are now dealing with ASD and VSD.

*An atrial septal defect (ASD) — sometimes called a hole in the heart — is a type of congenital heart defect in which there is an abnormal opening in the dividing wall between the upper filling chambers of the heart (the atria).

A ventricular septal defect (VSD) is a hole in the heart that's present at birth (congenital heart defect). The hole is between the lower heart chambers (right and left ventricles). It allows oxygen-rich blood to move back into the lungs instead of being pumped to the rest of the body.

A ventricular septal defect is usually repaired with open heart surgery in which Castiel will undergo surgery when he reaches the 5 month mark.

As devestating as this news is to our family we are surrounding Logan, Emily and their children with our love and support. However, they have a very long road ahead of them.

Any financial support during this time to help eliminate the financial burden it would be so greatly appreciated so Logan and Emily can spend as much time with Castiel while he awaits open heart surgery.

Thank you for any contribution you are able to make! From the bottom of our hearts THANK-YOU

#HeartWarrior #CasStrong