Scene: Hospital Sao Joao, Porto, Portugal, 2002
My first child arrived into the world in a frenzy of multi-lingual profanities, pillow-biting, forceps and a bunch of students no doubt sent in to see the crazy English lady trying to do it without an epidural.
Exhausted after a two-day slog and stitched up like a patchwork quilt (but not quite as attractive!), I spent my first night with my beautiful baby by my side.
He didn't cry all night; I felt like the luckiest mum in the ward of crying babes.
The next morning I headed for a shower, little knowing that my world was about to be rocked.
I hobbled back into the ward to find other mums holding their babies tight and trying to hide their pitying looks. My baby's cot was surrounded by doctors in white coats and dad sat with his head in his hands. "It's his heart."
It's all a bit of a blur after that.
He had a transposition of the great arteries. Here's the technical bit: -
Baby was rushed to have a catheter and balloon fitted inside his tiny body. The two major arteries leaving his heart were connected to the wrong ventricles (the lower chambers of the heart). This meant blood containing oxygen from the lungs was pumped back into the lungs, while blood lacking oxygen was pumped around his body.
On his seventh day, he had open heart surgery. The arterial switch took six hours; the longest six hours of my life.
All went well thanks to the skill of Dr Manuel Pedro Magalhaes and his team at Hospital Cruz Vermelha in Lisbon and I eventually took my baby home with a mended heart and staples down the middle of his tiny chest.
The scars healed, only to be opened again a year later when a check-up discovered a hole in his arterial wall which also needed open heart surgery.
Today, he is fit and well and Captain of his league-winning football team no less (yes, I'm very proud!).
Now, you think I've gone all serious don't you!!? And indeed, my beautiful son's start in the world was very serious and I am grateful every day for his life and the efforts of those who ensured it was not cut short.
However......once my little boy had survived two goes on the operating table, you think I'd take extra care of him wouldn't you?!
Well, (just to make sure nobody calls Esther), the following tips for bringing up your precious bundle after double life-saving heart surgery are TOTALLY RANDOM and ANONYMOUS!
- Don't leave your sleeping baby on the bed while you vac the lounge; that will be the day he / she learns how to roll over and over....
- Don't let them wave their arms around while you are ironing; a stray finger is bound to find its way between the iron and the creased garment.
- Don't let your child slip in a neighbour's hot tub and bang their chin (the blood goes everywhere and you have to leave a perfectly good party to spend hours in A&E)
- If a tummy ache moves from the middle to the right, don't tell them to have a sit down and stop moaning.....they may need an emergency appendix op.
- Don't leave your child upstairs with a neighbour's daughter; she will open the stair gate and your child will land face-down in the hat and gloves basket at the bottom of the steps.
If Dr Manuel read this, I'm sure he'd be thinking; 'bloody hell, after all my hard work....!!'
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| Then |
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| And, now |
