Kuwaiti family hopeful for girl’s bright future
KUWAIT: Three-year old Rayah has not had the most typical start to life. Rayah was born with a complex heart defect called pulmonary atresia, ventricular septal defect and major aortopulmonary collateral arteries. The defect was causing her heart and breathing complications at an early age, and required a series of specialized surgeries; surgeries that were recently performed with success.
Rayah first visited the London-based hospital in 2014 to undergo the first set of operations to resolve her heart problems and breathing difficulties. Speaking on Rayah’s initial visit to GOSH in 2014, Robert Yates, Consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital said, “Rayah had a very complex surgery which required lots of planning and working across our multidisciplinary teams. As part of her condition, Rayah did not have normal lung arteries and instead her lungs were supplied with blood from several individual collateral arteries. As part of her original operations last year, these had to be detached from the aorta and joined together to create a more normal blood supply to the lungs.
Earlier this year, Rayah received an eagerly awaited and final set of surgeries to fix the structure of her heart, replacing a heart valve and closing the hole between pumping chambers. Yates said, “Once these had grown big enough, after the initial shunt operation and subsequent catheter procedure, we had to make a connection between the newly created lung circulation and the right ventricle using a valved tube, and at the same time, the hole in her heart had to be closed as the final stage of a series of operations.
We thought we would have to leave a small hole at the end of the final operation, however Rayah’s lung arteries grew well and we were able to close the hole completely which will make her cardiac prognosis much better for the future. This is a very encouraging result after a lot of planning and team work, and is an example of how planning treatment in stages over a period of time at the same hospital can really improve outcomes.” After waiting for a year for Rayah’s clinical progress to improve for the second set of surgeries to take place, Rayah’s parents are now hopeful for the future.
“Rayah’s last two surgeries happened in a timeframe of a month, with the most recent being the closing of the hole in her heart which took place in May this year,” said Rayah’s father. “We wish to see her in the best shape and for her to do what she wants to do. Rayah enjoys playing games and playing with toys like most children and she is a very smart girl; she has learnt English while in London,” he added. “GOSH has become more than a hospital to us. I feel immense gratitude to the nurses and doctors there. I consider the GOSH staff to be part of our family,” concluded Rayah’s father.