The parents of a baby boy who was given less than a year to live after he was born with a rare and deadly heart defect has defied the odds to celebrate his 1st BIRTHDAY.
Tedd Wright underwent TWO gruelling open-heart operations months after he was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a condition which left him with a hole in the heart.
His distraught parents Sarah and Daniel, both 23, were told his heart would fail within a year of his birth and he was given only a slim chance of survival.
But incredibly, Tedd has stunned doctors and is expected to make a full recovery after having two open heart operations in just three months.
Tedd’s health deteriorated when he was just seven months old when his parents noticed his skin turn puffy and blue and he suffered shortness of breath.
Tedd, from Trent Vale, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs., was admitted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital where he underwent an eight hour op in March this year.
Surgeons used donor tissue to plug the hole in his tiny heart and doctors initially told his parents the surgery had been a success.
But, heartbreakingly, Tedd’s heart began to fail again just weeks after the operation.
In June surgeons replaced his damaged valves with donated tissue.
Incredibly, a month later he celebrated his first birthday and after receiving the all clear from doctors he is now fit enough to start nursery next week.
Mum-of-two Sarah, a bank worker, said: “It was all so scary, they first noticed something wasn’t right during a routine scan at Birmingham Women’s Hospital before Tedd was born.
“The doctor noticed an abnormality in his heartbeat, but she couldn’t work out what it was.
“We had a second scan and they told us it was a hole in his heart.
“They told us his heart would fail within the first year of his life – that was terrifying.
“They couldn’t tell us when it was going to be, it could have been the moment he was born or his first birthday. It was like a ticking timebomb waiting to go off. It was awful.
“When he was born he was healthy, he was pink and cried and it all seemed okay, but we knew there was this underlying problem waiting to come out.
“The doctors said it wouldn’t be a sudden thing, he wouldn’t collapse all of a sudden, but they would notice it over a number of weeks.
“We were on edge, especially when they said ‘heart failure’.
“We just didn’t know what to expect and were not sure he would even survive to see his first birthday.
“Then it happened and he went into the hospital for the operation in March, when he was just seven months old.
“It was awful, just eight hours of waiting and waiting. When they finished they said it was a success.
“But then when we went back for a check-up a few weeks later they told us it hadn’t been a success and he needed another surgery.
“The second surgery was done by a world famous surgeon, all the parents bow down to him when he walks down the corridor.
“That was a success and now he’s a normal healthy boy. He will need another surgery in his teens and then probably when he is grown up.
“But for now he’s gorgeous. He loves to sit and watch everything his two-and-a-half-year-old sister Francesca does.
“He’s now starting to walk, we’re so proud. He really is our little Super Tedd.”
FACT FILE
Tetralogy of Fallot affects around 400 in every million births and consists of four separate heart defects.
These include pulmonary infundibular stenosis, which means it is harder for blood to flow forward from the right ventricle to the lungs.
Sufferers also have an overriding aorta, which occurs when the aorta, a major blood vessel, is positioned differently.
It results in the aorta receiving some blood from the right ventricle reducing the amount of oxygen in the blood.
The third, is a hole between the two bottom chambers of the heart, known as a ventricular septal defect.
The fourth part is an enlarged – or ‘hypertrophic’ – right ventricle. It means that blood does not flow well from the heart to the lungs.
