When parents bring their new babies into the world, they want them to be healthy. Sometimes, this doesn’t happen and at times it’s straight out of a parent’s nightmare.
Luckily, Lola Boyer, 7-weeks-old from Maple Valley, will be OK once she has a surgery to fix her medical condition.
According to her mother, Maureen Boyer, who works at Rock Creek Elementary, her daughter has a pulmonary artery sling, a rare defect created by the origin of the left pulmonary artery.
This means baby Lola will develop respiratory problems as she gets older, which is why she needs the surgery. She also has ventricular septal defect, which is much more common in babies. It is basically a small hole in the heart that within time will close on its own.
According to Boyer, it is a 51 in a million chance for a child to get this rare defect. And what makes Lola’s case even more rare is her doctors found the defect much earlier than they normally would. She said usually doctors won’t find any signs of this defect until the child is at least 5 or 6 years old.
When Lola went in for a check-up her doctor discovered she had a heart murmur, and upon further inspection, her doctor found the more rare defect. According to Boyer, the doctors have had a hard time moving forward with treatment because they found the defect so early.
“It’s easier because she doesn’t have any respiratory issues (yet), but it makes it harder because the don’t really know how to proceed at this point,” Boyer said.
Generally when doctors find this defect the child already has respiratory issues and they can proceed with surgery, but since Lola doesn’t have those symptoms, they have to wait about a year to do the surgery.
“It’s not really if she develops the symptoms, it’s when,” Boyer said.
Baby Lola goes in for checkups with her doctors every couple of weeks or so to get tests done to make sure she developing OK.
For the next year, Boyer said she plans to stay at home with Lola so she can keep an eye on her and be able to take her to these doctors appointments whenever she needs. Also, once Lola has her surgery, Boyer said she would like to continue staying at home with her as well to continue monitoring her.
Boyer said the hardest thing for her is the unknown.
“Not knowing the timeline, when she’ll have surgery, there’s a lot of things up in the air,” she said.
Once Lola has the surgery she will be able to lead a normal life for the most part. According to Boyer, her daughter will have to be monitored and get checkups throughout her entire childhood.
Vic Kitzes, the Boyer’s family friend, decided to organize a 3-on-3 basketball tournament at the new Tahoma High School. It is scheduled for 10 a.m. Oct. 7 and according to Kitzes, they already have two teams signed up.
The tournament fee per team is $80 and is open to all ages, skill levels and all genders. There will be prizes for the top teams.
“I’m just happy to be helping out,” Kitze said.
The funds from this tournament will go towards medical bills and to help Boyer stay at home with Lola while she takes time off of work.
