Raising Awareness For CHD

 
Raising money to raise awareness for people like Oliver who suffer with CHD. CHD stands for Congenital Heart Defect and is an abnormality of the heart which occurs soon after conception and often before the mother is aware that she is pregnant. The defects can range in severity from simple problems, such as “holes” between chambers of the heart, to very severe malformations, such as complete absence of one or more chambers or valves.

Myself (Shona) and Andrea (Oliver’s Mum) will be shaving our heads to raise money for the Zak Scott Braveheart Foundation. 

http://zakscottbraveheartfoundation.org.uk/

Andrea & Oliver’s Story:

At my 20 week scan I heard the words “there is something wrong with your babies heart” we were taken into a room and told our baby only had half a working heart and the best thing to do was to terminate the pregnancy!! NO WAY not happening was our response!!
Oliver was born via c-section on Valentine’s Day 2013 weighing a very healthy 8lbs 8oz. We saw him briefly before he was taken to Yorkhill children’s hospital in Glasgow. At 4 days old we handed our baby over to a surgeon who we had only met the previous evening. He was given a 10% chance of making it through surgery. After a very long agonising day our boy had made it through 14 hours of open heart surgery! At 2am we got a call from the hospital, “Oliver is deteriorating, we need to take him back to theatre and put him on ECMO” Dad gave his consent over the phone! Oliver was on ECMO for seven days, needed another open heart surgery then back on ECMO for another seven days... Oliver spent 12 weeks in intensive care, 11 weeks of this on a ventilator, suffered a bleed on the brain, complete kidney failure (needed dialysis) seven times his lungs collapsed, feeding issues, severe reflux, needed more surgery due to his chest wound becoming infected! At six months old Oliver had his third open heart surgery (Glenn) this time spending 9 days in intensive care. Two weeks later back to theatre to get a gastrostomy button inserted (feeding tube directly into his stomach)

After nearly eight months of being in Yorkhill hospital Oliver was transferred to our local hospital. A few days of being there he contracted the Rota virus, he became very ill very quickly, Oliver suffered a major stroke which affected his left side. A few weeks later he was discharged home. It was great having all of us at home together. Oliver grew stronger as the months went on. Sitting unaided, talking, crawling, bottom shuffling etc all the things we were told he would never be able to do when he had the bleed on his brain.... At the age of 4yrs Oliver had his final stage open heart surgery (Fontan) he spent 6 weeks in hospital, suffered kidney failure, enlarged liver, low sodium, high potassium, chylothorax (not absorbing fat from his specialised milk) wound infections.

Oliver also has cerebral palsy, cerebral visual impairment, hypermobility (extra elastic joints) scoliosis (curved spine) he uses a walking frame to get about and a wheelchair for outside! He wears splints on his feet/legs and a spinal brace to help straighten the curve. He still has feeding issues too.
Despite all of this Oliver will be 5yrs old next week, he attends mainstream school four days a week. He doesn’t let anything stop him.. there is no such word as can’t in our house! He’s such a happy boy, always smiling and full of mischief.

He’s a real life superhero!

you can also follow Oliver’s journey through his Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/OliversHypoplasticLeftHeartSyndrome/

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Any donation, small or big, is appreciated.