Brycen Armstrong: Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome

Brycen Armstrong was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and has undergone multiple heart surgeries and catheterization procedures at Le Bonheur Heart Institute.  

When Kasey Armstrong gave birth to her son Brycen, she knew something wasn’t right. Brycen wouldn’t eat, and he was starting to turn blue.  

Kasey and Brycen were discharged home after just 24 hours, and a visit to the pediatrician’s office the next day showed Brycen had a heart murmur.  

By the time Kasey returned to the pediatrician’s office the next day, Brycen was in cardiac arrest and needed to be airlifted to Le Bonheur Children’s. Just a few hours later, Kasey learned that her son had hypoplastic left heart syndrome – a heart condition that causes the left ventricle of the heart to be underdeveloped. Brycen had a long road of heart surgeries ahead of him. He was just 3 days old.  

“I just asked, ‘What can I do now to keep my baby alive?’” said Kasey. 

Brycen spent the first two months of his life at Le Bonheur and had two open heart surgeries for hypoplastic left heart syndrome – the hybrid procedure and the Norwood procedure. Kasey and Brycen returned six months later for his next surgery, the Glenn procedure. These surgeries are a slow reconstruction of the heart in order to provide optimal blood flow to the body.  

Brycen Armstrong recently underwent evaluation for heart transplant in Le Bonheur new hybrid MRI and catheterization lab. With just one time under sedation, Brycen was able to have a brain MRI and then moved immediately into the cath lab for the next portion of his evaluation.

But Brycen’s left lung was still not getting enough blood flow and the pressures in his heart were too high, which meant he wasn’t a candidate for the final surgery he needed – the Fontan procedure.  

That’s how Kasey and Brycen found themselves at Le Bonheur’s hybrid catheterization (cath) and MRI suite. It was time for Brycen to be evaluated for the heart transplant list. Without a Fontan procedure, he would need a new heart.  

Thanks to the new setup for the cath lab and MRI, physicians were easily able to complete multiple steps in Brycen’s heart transplant evaluation without the need for additional time under sedation. After prepping for his cath procedure, Brycen was moved into the MRI suite for brain imaging – a part of his heart transplant evaluation. He was subsequently rolled back into the cath lab to complete the cath portion of the evaluation. All of this was accomplished with just one time under anesthesia and minimal transport.  

And Kasey got even better news about her son as a result of the cath procedure – his medication had worked, and he was now a candidate for the Fontan procedure, instead of needing a heart transplant.  

“The doctors at Le Bonheur are amazing and have saved Brycen’s life more than once,” said Kasey. “His doctors say that when they look at Brycen it’s like a blessing because he should not be here.”