Sharing our experiences of parenting a child with a congenital heart defect
This month has seen a significant milestone for my little heart warrior as she started preschool for the first time and I am so proud at how well she is doing. It has been quite an involved process getting her prepared for preschool and I am sharing a post about all the different things we… Read More
Amongst all the lovely Christmas presents I received were a few books from my lovely hubby who clearly knows my reading tastes very well as he chose the following books for me: The Women of the Cousins’ War: the real White Queen and her rivals – Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones Elizabeth… Read More
Yesterday was the third anniversary of Jessica’s Norwood procedure. The surgery that day was long and difficult and shortly after Jessica had been stabilised on PICU following the surgery, she had to have her chest re-opened to remove a blood clot. I still vividly remember our terror as we waited in the parents accommodation, both… Read More
The phone call came towards the end of November – we had a date for Jessica’s open-heart surgery. We had hoped that we might be able to have Christmas together first but it was not to be – the surgery was set for 14th December. We couldn’t focus on the thought of Christmas – not… Read More
The photo above was taken on Christmas morning on the cardiac ward. It was Jessica’s first Christmas and she had been transferred to the ward from the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) the day before after having spent 10 days on PICU recovering from open heart surgery. The ward was beautifully decorated, the nurses had… Read More
Dear Dr X I suspect it might have been another routine appointment for you. For us, it was a day when our world fell apart. A day when we received news that no parent ever wants to hear. It is doubtful that you would even remember us amongst all the families you must see… Read More
CHD awareness is a cause that is very close to my heart and we’ve been doing our little bit to help raise awareness over this last month. Jessica’s story is one of those featured on the Big Tick campaign by Tiny Tickers which focuses on improving detection of congenital heart defects at the 20 week… Read More