My Daughter has had open heart as well she had 14 surgeries before she was 11 years old . 7 open heart and the rest were like catheters and stuff. she had her first op when she was 3 and a half.

Good luck and I hope your daughter doesn't have to have as many operations as mine.

Also her doctor of nurse will tell you how to care for her scar and also is she is young how to hold her without hurting her . Good Luck

Follow the directions your doctors give and things will be fine.  Ask all the questions you feel you need to ask, and write down the answers as they give them to you.

If it was my son (3 years old) I would call it his lucky stripe. And give him an easy way of explaining it to other curioius kids and adults.  Eg the doctor gave me a lucky stripe when he fixed my heart.

Don't try to cover it up. If she is self -consious about it, I would let her know that there are people in the world with much bigger problems, eg. not enough food to eat, legs that don't work, etc.  This might help put it in perspective.

Perhaps, most of all, think about how you will re-act.  It is only a scar. Perhaps blow it a kiss and let her know the doctor did a great job. She will take her cues from you (if she is young).

Minti mail me if you need more help but here goes???

FIRST what do you Post Op Going Home directions say.....you really should follow those and not what we tell you to do. I can however, tell you what we were told to do and  it will matter HOW the surgical site was closed as well.

Here are/were our instrctions.  Jedd was "glued" shut with a surgical bonding glue, NO STICHTES!!!! Please DO NOT do this unless you ask you DR first.

After Jedd's glue fell off on it's own, we were NOT to pick at it to get it to fall off, we were todlto go to WalMart and get liquid Vitamin E. It comes in a small bottle in the vitamin ailse.

We were todl that every diaper change to dip our finger in it and spread it on all of his scars. The chest one and his chest tube scare wher ethey wer loceated, so ALL three sites got Vit. E oil. His incision to t his day is fantastic.

We also had to keep the scar out of direct sunlight for at least 6 months. And even then w=for a year post op we wer eto use HEAVY duty sunscreen on his chest and tube site to keep them protected.

We followed ALL of those inistraction and he looks fabulous.

You also have to take in affect the child's RACE and ethnicity. Jedd is white and as such will/can scar less. We were told that Indian blood has more Keliods in them and there for will make worse scares. I personally KNOW a young girl who had open heart surgery and her scare is much more raised than Jedd's is. She has mild American Indian blood in her blood    line so her scarring is attributed to that.

Also have they taught you to carry her on the bum and back, as we were told. You don't wan tto lift her under her arms. All this would depend on her age of course. Jedd was only 6 months old when he had his.

You can see pictures in my main homepage of his.

I cannot stress MORE the fact that you should have been given a discharge sheet form the Nurse Practitioner form the Cariothroatic Surgeon's office to ensure you know proper home care.  PLEASE call them and make sure you take care of hta site properly. They will not mind if youcall them. That's what they are there for. We had her beeper number and could call 24/7 for quiestions.

Also, as far as bathing, we could  not bath Jedd in a tub immersed  until the site was really well healed. I think we went about 2 weeks HOME before we could do that. So that would be a total of about 3/5 weeks altogether without going in the tub for a bath.

What was repaired??? Jedd had a signiciafnly HUGE VSD it required a synthetic patch to close it up. He did not have any complications and did  not need a pacemaker.