Tim's Amazing Story

Little Tim (not to be confused with Timothy from New Day North) arrived into our care in March, 2015, just two months old and suffering from serious heart disease.  He was so small and fragile that the doctors wanted to wait to do surgery, but by May he had to be admitted to the hospital because his heart was so unstable and he needed treatment for pneumonia. 

This was not our usual hospital for heart surgeries, but the surgeon strongly recommended that Tim needed surgery immediately because his heart function was deteriorating daily.  We were faced with a decision; to go ahead with surgery, or try to have him transferred to the hospital that we usually use, who were recommending a different approach.  After a long meeting with the surgeon, we decided to go for immediate surgery, so on May 29 he went into the operating room.

Even the journey from the PICU to the operating room was an anxious one, with a long wait for the elevator, the doctor ‘bagging’ Tim to keep him breathing.  Then there was a long wait while the surgery was underway.  The plan had been to avoid open heart surgery, as Tim was considered too weak to survive it, and instead to attempt a minimally invasive surgery.  When they tried to place a patch, the heart wall was too thin for it to hold, so they had to perform open heart surgery after all.

The surgery went well and we had a miracle…Tim was stable.  The doctors did have to leave his chest open for two days because his heart had enlarged too much to close it.  We waited to hear news about his recovery, hoping that there would be no infection.

Three days later he was still on the ventilator and had a lung infection.  The days went by and we kept on hoping…

On June 9 his infection was getting better and we danced a happy dance when he heard that he had been taken off the ventilator!  On June 16 he was back on the regular ward, with one of our nannies there to take care of him.