Lifesavers for Latasha

By now, you know I was born with a heart defect known as Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA). So, what does that mean?

It means I was born with the pulmonary artery and the aorta being transposed, or switched, which means oxygen was not getting to my body.

In normal hearts, the right side pumps oxygen-poor blood from the heart to the lungs through the pulmonary artery. The left side then pumps that oxygen-rich blood to the body through the aorta. The right side of your heart is designed to be low pressure and has thinner walls, because it doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood to the lungs. The left side of your heart is designed to be high pressure and is thicker, because it has to work harder to pump blood to your body.

In TGA, oxygen-poor blood comes to the heart and is pumped back to the body, while oxygen-rich blood pumps back to the lungs. Some mixing of blood occurs if there is also an atrial or ventricular septal defect, or hole, in the heart.

Once diagnosed, surgery is the only option. In the early 1980s, the common surgery to do was an atrial switch (also known as Mustard or Senning), which repaired the heart to allow the right side of my heart to pump oxygen-rich blood to my body and the left side of my heart to pump oxygen-poor blood to my lungs.

Remember, the right side of your heart is designed to be low pressure and thinner. In my heart, the right side has to work much harder than it’s suppose to in order to pump blood to the rest of my body. This has, over the years, caused it to become thicker, leading to heart failure.

In the mid to late 1980s, the atrial switch surgery became less common in favor of the arterial switch surgery, which doesn’t seem to cause as many long-term issues.

Some of the long-term issues people like me who have had an atrial switch surgery may face include baffle problems, rhythm problems, and pump problems.

I have had all three problems.

I had a baffle leak, which was repaired in my second open-heart surgery.

I had rhythm problems all throughout high school and college, until I got a pacemaker in my 20s. Even with the pacemaker, I sometimes experience palpitations and atrial fibrillation.

And now I’m having pump problems, which is why I’m listed for a heart transplant.

I’ll share more stories specific to dealing with each of the long-term issues, but this post, hopefully, explains more about my specific heart defect.

To learn about TGA in more detail, please visit

https://www.achaheart.org/your-heart/educational-qas/types-of-heart-defects/transposition-of-the-great-arteries-after-mustardsenning-repair/