HeartKids beating strong 30 years on
HeartKids, an organisation dedicated to informing and supporting the families of children with heart conditions, celebrated its 30th anniversary in the capital with a picnic in the backyard of Government House yesterday.
The festivities were complete with champagne for adults and a bouncy castle for kids.
The lawn was full of parents like Teressa Jones-Madill who had watched her newborn son, Harrison, die twice before he was 3 months old.
Born six weeks premature, Harrison was only 11 weeks old, when Teressa and her husband Simon had to decide whether to let him undergo open-heart surgery or watch him die.
‘‘Because he was so premature, we were told he probably wouldn’t survive,’’ she said.
With support from a HeartKids case worker, the JonesMadills chose for Harrison to have the surgery, repairing two holes in his heart but three days later, he had ‘‘blown up like a balloon’’ from an infection.
‘‘It wasn’t until we got out of the [pediatric intensive care unit] that we could start to dream we could see that he was going to come out the other side.’’
Harrison, now 11 years old, said he may not remember the drama of his first days but he knows his heart is the reason he is alive, and it’s why he can ‘‘still be active in sports the way other 11-year-olds are’’.
HeartKids’ founders Linda Davies and Michelle Mann were less fortunate.
The two met at Greenlane Hospital 38 years ago, each with newborns, Robert and Jessica, who later died from the same congenital heart condition.
Mann said it was bittersweet looking back at how far medicine has come since. ‘‘Nowadays our child would have lived.’’
The two remembered having little idea of where to turn to in order to find out more about what was going on at the time.
‘‘The bit where you don’t know is just horrendous,’’ Davies said.
‘‘There was no-one to do what we did. It really was all about supporting the parents and making sure no one was in the same boat as us, feeling so frightened, so alone and with no knowledge nothing to look at – granted we didn’t have the internet.’’
Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy called the organisation a ‘‘lifeline’’ for children with heart problems and their families.
‘‘HeartKids Wellington has touched many lives over the last three decades and it’s wonderful to see so many people here honouring it’s work.’’
‘‘Because he was so premature, we were told he probably wouldn’t survive.’’
Teressa JonesMadill