life
JACK’S CHD JOURNEY
One mother recounts the long and painful journey after being told her son has 2 holes in his heart.
BY JOANNE SALTER
J
ack’s heart journey began when he was just 3 weeks old. I knew there was something not quite right after already having a son previously - Jack’s big brother, Jamie. Although Jack was born a month early by emergency C-section there weren’t any signs of anything wrong - he was just a bit small. Once we had settled at home after spending a week in hospital, Jack was not feeding as he should. I’d notice he was becoming breathless with most feeds. I informed the Health Visitor who advised me to attend at our local doctors’ surgery, which I did. Unfortunately, on that first visit, the doctor had said that it was probably just a viral infection and said to keep an eye on Jack. The Health Visitor called me to ask how we got on, and after I explained she then said she would return the next day and make another appointment with another doctor. We went back the next 34
day and saw our family doctor who immediately listened to Jack’s chest and said he would need us to go straight to the Children’s Ward at our local hospital. At this point I knew nothing whatsoever about Congenital Heart Disease.
what felt like an eternity, Jack was stabilised and was flown over to the UK in an air ambulance. Upon arrival onto the heart ward, Jack was placed in the Intensive Care section of the ward with aroundthe-clock monitoring. After a few days passed, Jack responded well to the heart medication and being permanently fed high-calorie feeds through an NG Tube, as it was too tiring on him to feed him orally.
"I’d notice he was becoming breathless with most feeds."
After several tests on the ward I remember very clearly the room full with doctors, and that’s when our lives changed forever. “Your child has 2 holes in his heart (an ASD and VSD) and is in heart failure!” Jack was hooked up to numerous monitors, cannulas and a feeding tube inserted. The plan was to fly Jack over to a UK Children’s Hospital asap for further treatment/possible open-heart surgery. The next coming days were challenging as Jack had deteriorated significantly and became too sick to travel. After
We spent approximately 3 weeks in the UK before being flown back home. From then on Jack spent most of his early years in hospital. Our new normal. As the years went on Jack suffered with repeated chest infections which was initially put down to him having heart conditions and were GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020
