62 | www.Ups tatePhys i c i ansSC . com | www.Hea l thL i nksUps tate. com A Unique Case: FROM THE BOTTOM OF HIS HEART Soon after Tara Hamlin got pregnant with her first son, she had to undergo surgery to have an ovarian cyst removed – which doctors warned could potentially get larger, rupture and kill both mother and baby. Fortunately, Brady, also known as “miracle baby No. 1,” was born safely in 2004, and, just four months later, Tara was unexpectedly pregnant again with a second son. “Because of my issues with the first pregnancy, doctors performed a couple of ultrasounds but didn’t detect anything,” Tara recalled. But when Noah Hamlin was born in September 2005, doctors informed Tara and her husband Michael that the infant had a heart murmur. Though Tara’s regular OBGYN disagreed, the couple kept an appointment to get their second baby checked out, and Noah had his first-ever cardiology appointment at Greenville Memorial Hospital just 10 days later. The results of that appointment turned out to be bad news: Noah had a ventricular septal defect — a hole in the heart causing blood to flow back into the lungs instead of throughout the body. “It was shocking to hear,” Tara said. “We did not believe it at first. I remember on the way home from the cardiologist’s office just being stunned. I was scared to death because they said if you have any other children, the chance of this defect increases. So we made the decision right then not to have any more.” As Noah transitioned from babyhood to toddlerhood, his parents kept a watchful eye over him. The family went to the cardiologist quarterly in the beginning, and Noah took medication to “keep his lungs dry,” Tara said. Despite these difficulties, the child had plenty of good times in his early years. In fact, by the time Noah turned 2, doctors thought the hole in his heart was closing. They even weaned him off the medicine. “At that point, it was something we had learned to deal with. He was doing well and basically normal,” Tara explained. "I can remember [the boys] playing in the yard. Noah would run and then sit down to catch his breath. He played with his brother and other kids – he just stopped to rest.” THE NOAH HAMLIN STORY By Denise K. James
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