‘My son’s heart was the size of a walnut when he was rushed into surgery at 10 days old – I was terrified’
A mother recalled the fear she felt when her son, who had a tiny heart the size of a walnut, was rushed into surgery when he was just 10 days old.
Eddison Watts, of Norwich, was diagnosed with a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot during his mother’s pregnancy, caused by blood not flowing properly throughout his body.
It is one of the most common heart defects, affecting around one in every 3,600 births in the UK, according to the British Heart Foundation (BHF). It causes babies to be born with a hole in the heart and narrowing of the lung valve, and the main artery of the body to grow in the wrong place.
In most cases, children will have surgery to treat tetralogy of Fallot when they are at least six months old. But Eddison needed life-saving open-heart surgery when he was just two weeks old because he had a large hole in his heart.
Eddison’s mother Jo Watts said: Independent: “It was an unknown and scary time. When they operated on his heart, it was the size of a walnut.”
The 43-year-old mother of three children said that during the scan, she was told that her baby had a heart problem, but they could not determine the nature of the problem. They were not given the diagnosis until a later specialist fetal cardiology scan at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
“We have two older daughters with healthy hearts and normal pregnancies, so being told at the 20-week scan that there was something wrong with your baby’s heart was very overwhelming and very challenging,” she added.
“We were always given the impression that he would need surgery when he was about six months old and at a better weight, but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.”
He explained that it was a normal birth and they were sent home after five days in the hospital. But eight days later, a neonatal nurse visited and found that his oxygen saturation was drastically low; This is a common side effect of tetralogy of Fallot, which means less oxygen is transported throughout the body.
Ms Watts and Eddison were taken by the children’s acute ambulance service from Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital to the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London for emergency surgery, where surgeons “repaired the large hole in her heart”, she said.
Eddison, now seven, has his annual check-up at Great Ormond Street Hospital and will need valve replacement surgery in his teens.
“His heart is beating faster than the average child because he’s working harder to keep up,” Ms Watts added.
“He loves playing football and has joined a local team, but at a certain point he knows when to stop after a strenuous, long activity like a half-hour training session. So there are limitations, but now that he’s getting a little older he’s starting to become more aware of that.”
Eddison, a pupil at Cawston Primary School near Norwich, was named a Young Heart Hero by the BHF for his fundraising efforts and bravery in the face of a serious heart condition.
He inspired his school and local bowling club, of which his father Graham is a part, to raise more than £650 for charity. Eddison was one of a small number of children from across the UK to receive the award. BHF’s Young Hearted Hero AwardsHeld in September at the Paradox Museum in Knightsbridge, London.
Eddison said: “I wanted to help other kids like me. Winning the Young Heart Hero Award was really exciting and I had a great day at the museum.”
The awards ceremony meant Eddison met other young children with heart problems just like him, and this was a source of reassurance; Mrs. Watts would have appreciated it when her son was diagnosed.
“I said in the hospital after he was born that if there was another family that would go through what we did, I would be more than happy to talk to them because I feel like there is a lack of support out there for families with this diagnosis,” she said.
Before the emergence of BHF, most babies diagnosed with serious heart defects in the UK did not survive to their first birthday. Today, thanks to research, more than eight in 10 children diagnosed survive into adulthood.
