HERALD JOURNAL | Katie Piekes
PROVIDENCE — Mountain Crest High School junior Jack Salmond has been fighting for his life ever since the day he was born.
“He was pink,” said Niles Salmond, Jack’s father. “After a few hours he turned quite blue.”
Diagnosed with hypoplastic right heart syndrome prior to his birth, Jack was born without a right ventricle. Both of his valves were in the left side of his heart, he had a hole between the lower two chambers and transposed gray arteries. The family’s cardiologist in Seattle, Washington, encouraged Jack’s mother, Patty Salmond, to have an abortion, claiming Jack would drastically alter his family’s lifestyle.
“Which it has,” Niles said. “But you know, it really (brought) our family together. It really helped them — all of the kids.”
Shortly after his birth, Jack had three open-heart surgeries: The first, called a Norwood procedure, was performed at six days old. His second surgery, called a Glenn shunt, was performed when he was nine months old.
He then had a third surgery, called a Fontan procedure, at age 3.
Two years ago, he was diagnosed with Protein-losing enteropathy, a condition damaging his gastrointestinal tract, and had to have a procedure to keep it at bay for a while. This ultimately decreased his oxygen saturation. Continue reading
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