Message that heart is not OK was one of the unexpected ones. Robin was diagnosed that he has open ductus botalli and he has defect of heart atrium septum. These communications use to correct without surgery during first year of life. We believed that it would be so. But special examination showed that ductus botalli had to be closed surgically. It was being done by cathetrisation - the way of surgery where a catheter goes through blood artery into the heart, there it does what should be done and is pulled out from the place where it came to the artery - it was on the thigh in Robin's case.

Cathetrisation in June was not successful because arteries configuration was non-traditional. He was indicated to normal surgery. He had so called cardiovascular ring - artery whorl which pressed the throat and snorkel. It explained Robin's problems with breathing during any effort (when crying) and his inability to eat solid food.

After some illnesses which delayed the surgery, he was succesfully operated in October, so we could walk to the happy future of other surgieries. I can confirm the rumours, that children cardiocentre in children`s hospital in Bratislava is really of a top quality and even people there are very kind (not so typical for our hospital care).

Genetic specialists identified Robin's problems as the Stickler's Syndrome soon after the birth. They said that the diagnosis would be clear in about his one year. And so they did - they concluded him as having this syndrome. What does that mean - that his problems are hereditary, the main symptome is sight loss. This was rather unpleasant having severe loss of hearing.

We were not sure of correctness of this diagnosis. Not all typical symptoms were present in Robin and he had some which are not described as symptoms of the Stickler Syndrome. Moreover, we didn't see any signs in us or our ancestors. Our geneticist explained us that it can be - it will not express in many generations and in one - whoops. But we were not sure. Moreover, our geneticists don't have an access to the internet, they don't know English... we felt that they may be wrong.

What with that? We began to look for possibility of verifying this syndrome. It is known which exact genes are damaged, but the DNA tests can not be done in our country. We found out that this test can be done only in one place in Europe - in England. But it is not possible to send blood samples there, we have to come there. As our insurance companies would not pay this 'trip' and it would be rather expensive, we have let it for the future. (For continuing this story, see Year Four.)