Maigan
Animated Angels Copyright Lori Duncan

This Web Site subscribes to the philosophy of National Right To Life

Inclina aurem cordis tui, which means, "Listen with the ear of your heart."

NOTE! Those of you who have visited this website may notice that Miss Maigan's photo no longer downloads with this page. In an effort to make our website download faster go HERE to view Miss Maigan's photo when she was 10 months old.

Those who knew and have walked with Maigan during her two and a half years and her final days with us can view her picture along with her four brothers the day before her return to Her Father in Heaven, and take a final walk with Maigan. You will find there the article published by the Fredericksburg Freelance Star titled, "A Child on Loan from God," telling about the last hours of her life and written by the same reporter who did the wonderful article, "Maigans Miricle." There you will also read about her visit with Our Lady of Guadalupe in preparation for her return home.

If you have lost a child, brother or sister or know of someone who has, we encourage you to visit the Compassionate Friends Website here. Be sure to take a look and read their brochures and visit the, "locations for your local chapter" page. If there is not a local chapter in your area, won't you consider starting one? God will smile upon you!

We have also added a page of Prayers that are most common to Roman Catholics.

Maigan was born August 24th, 1995 at Mary Washington Hospital Fredericksburg, Virginia. Her parents were Scott and Melinda Ferstl. Grandpa Ferstl authored this home page for Maigan, so she can tell the world what God, and the doctors and nurses at the Congenital Heart Center, Henrico Doctors' Hospital, Richmond, Virginia did for her. Maigan had people all over the world praying for her and we want to thank them all personally but we can't. But, we can use this website to do so. We now thank you whoever, and whereever you are!

Another major important reason for the website is to tell the story of Maigans Miracle and to provide a place for spiritual and medical information to people who are seeking that information. We know that at the time of Maigans birth and discovering the medical anomolies she had, we in turn had a difficult time in finding information about the condition(s) she was born with. Unfortunately there are still not much information available but there is hope!

We saw many families at the Henrico Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) that did not know where to go to seek answers and who were so afraid. We want to help those in similiar situations and we want to share Maigan's story to give peace and hope to anyone seeking help. We hope everyone, anywhere in the world, will know there are people who offers prayers for them and are willing to provide assistance and support to them.

Maigan is in Heaven now! Maigan was Gods child who was sent to us for many reasons and purposes. Maigan has fulfilled her mission and is now enjoying life eternal in bliss and happiness. We thank God for having her these past two and one half years and hope we can continue to go forward and keep our eyes focused on the dreams we had for her before she was born and the importance of her message following her birth. Maigan is, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, dancing with God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Mary, Joseph and all the Saints in Heaven. We wish someday to join her!

On this website you will learn that Maigan was born with three rare medical conditions:

The first is called Truncus Arteriosus. This is a rare failure of the heart to develop in the pre-natal stage. The doctors do not know why and in most cases the person does not survive the first six month. There are a few adults who had this anomoly. Most were corrected surgically but we know of one young lady who never had surgery and has enjoyed some success in life.

The second is that she did not have a pulmonary artery. This is not unusual in truncus cases. Maigan did have some collateral veins going to her right lung. Thank God for those collateral veins, because they would become very important in her surgery.

The last condition was a Chromosome 3P deletion anomoly. This is a missing #3 Chromosome at the break point 25.1. Any of these three conditions are life threatening in themselves and Maigan could have died at anytime but God chose to keep her around to do his will.

When Maigan arrived, the doctors at Mary Washington Hospital recognized her gray appearance as a heart/lung disorder of some kind. Maigan also was having difficulties breathing. My first inclination was to call my Pastor at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, which is a Parish in the Diocese of Arlington. Father John Peterson, an Associate Pastor, came over and baptized her, and she became a member of the Catholic Church which is why this Website is Catholic.

The doctors told us she needed specialized treatment, right away, and was transportion was requested from Henrico Doctors' Hospital, Congenital Heart Center, neonatal Intensive Care Unit, 7603 Forrest Avenue, Richmond, Virginia.

In the transport unit, Maigan had a personal doctor and a couple of really special nurses. They took good care of her in transport to Richmond, about 60 miles south of Fredericksburg. When she arrived, the primary care medical team was waiting for her and immediately started running test to determine the reason for her condition. They took blood, x-rays, scat scans, electrocardiograms, echograms, you name it they gave it to her. After several hours of testing, the suspense was over. The doctors told us she was a very sick baby and they did not feel she would survive more than seven to fourteen days. At the time they didn't know that she also had a Chromosome 3 problem; that was to come later. Anyway, they were told to do everything possible for her and that God would determine if she lived or died. After accumulating all of the test data, Dr. Mary Falterman, a Cardiologist, of Pediatric Cardiology of Virginia was brought in to look at all of the collected data. We thought it was a sign from God because we had been talking to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and her cardiologist was also named Mary. Anyway, what they told us was she had Truncus and it was very serious and life threatening. They did not give us any hope. Mary decided that what was best would be to stabilize her, let her body grow in size and come back later to correct the problem later if she lived. Consequently she did survive and went home on September 19th. Prior to her going home we also learned she had a deletion of the chromosome 3p and it was also a very serious problem and there would never be anything that could be done for it. We have since learned that exciting research is ongoing into Chromosome alteration and deletion therepy.

Maigan stayed home and visited with her brothers, Robby, Justin, Jacob and Zachary for about four months. But she started having problems in breathing so it was back to Henrico; only this time it would be to correct the heart operation. The risk to this procedure was very great.

When she arrived this time, we got to meet Dr. Gary Lofland who would be her surgeon during the operation. The date of the surgery was scheduled for January 10th 1996. While there, Dr.Lofland, who was the Director of the Congenital Heart Center, was to perform a procedure that he had developed which takes one of the most promising collateral veins and routes it as the pulmonary artery, seperate the aorta and pulmonary artery, with a conduit, and patch up her heart. This particular procedures is a modified Pascalli Procedure.

Maigan had actually been scheduled for the operation a day or so after she was originally scheduled to be operated on. If they had waited, she would have received a "conduit made out of synthetic material". This is important to reveal because a person who was supposed to be operated on the day that Maigan was originally scheduled to be operated on, came down with a virus and could not be operated on, so they moved Maigans surgery into their place. This permitted Dr. Lofland to use the vein scheduled for the person who was cancelled from someone who died instead of using the synthetic material on Maigan. Now she would have tissue from someone else that would grow with her body and avoid later surgeries! Dr. Gary said he was going to report her operation and the Truncus Arteriosus "Rascalli procedure" he used in a medical journal that will help other Surgeons! Isn't that GREAT!

As I said in the beginning, I did an awful lot of looking to find out about Truncus. Very little was available that would quell the fears. In fact, little exists for the layman and to this date nothing on the Chromosome 3 deletion problem. But that's not the only reason we are making this information available Dr. Loflands report on Truncus Arteriosus and the, sort of the, *Rascalli procedure [see footnote] he used is very interesting. In fact, we have learned over the course of the years, there are now five types of Truncus, the four that most surgeons know of and mine. As I said in the beginning, I did an awful lot of looking to find out what little there was to find out about Truncus. In fact, very little exists other than some graphics that shows what it is, nothing on why and how it is caused, and nothing on Chromosome 3. But that's not the complete reason we are making this website available. What we saw in the pediatric intensive care units made their hearts break. What we saw was a total absence of any support group whose purpose was to visit and be with babies. You know babies get lonely too. We are so fortunate. We were in situations where we could, and did, spend 24 hours a day with our Maigan at the hospital. Nancy became the boys mother while Melinda was at the hospital. I spent every evening leaving my work and traveling to Richmond, Scott took advantage of the medical leave policy from his job. Thousands of miles were traveled between Fredericksburg and Richmond.

We know babies get lonely. Many time all they have are the nurses and doctors. The love these babies, but they are always poking, probing and talking to them like they can't hear good. You know, loud.<grin> I think there is a need for volunteers to visit the pediatric care unit's world wide, much like the visitations that Mother Teresa does for the poor. I am convinced that when people see, especially college students, they will want to join in this inspired dream of ours.

During the course of the past several years and Maigans ups and downs, Dr. Alum, one of Maigan's principal doctors said that Maigan remind him of Star Trek! He said, "Maigan has been where no one else has been before!" How true! She was a fighter!

The 3p deletion, also known as 3p minus syndrome, has limited cases, fewer than 30, in the world that have been reported after 25 years of collecting chromosome data. The Scandanavian countries which collect chromosome information on all births are a source of chromosome information and research. My investigation has learned that most of the times the babies are usually miscarried. Within the United States, we have been able to identify several others that have the 3p deletion syndrome. Maigan was the only one known to also have a Truncus problem, and because it is so rare, little research is being, or will be done, as to the root causes of how the chromosome gets deleted.

*Written information about the procedure used Dr. Gary Lofland can be found in- "Surgery of the Chest", Sixth Edition, Volume II, Published by W.B. Saunders Company. If your child has this problem, I strongly recommend you obtain this report.

The story is continued on PAGE TWO

NOTE AND WARNING!: The beautiful song you are listening to is Andy Klapwyk's lasting tribute to Maigan and is simply called, "Maigan©" for the 'sole use' on her website. The song Maigan is copywrited and may not be copied, reproduced or used for any purpose!