Wee fighter has big battle
Cameron Davison and family are preparing to spend Christmas in Auckland’s Starship Hospital as the Pleasant Point newborn battles heart defects.
Only last week his parents Richard Davison and Angela Pierce were told to prepare for the worst but the ‘‘wee fighter’’, who has already had open heart surgery twice, is proving doctors wrong.
Three weeks ahead of Cameron’s birth on October 30, they learnt their son had a hole in his heart, a narrow aorta, a small left ventricle, and malformed mitral and tricuspid valves.
The family relocated to Auckland in October, before Cameron was born, where he could be monitored at Starship.
The first of the 7-week-old’s open heart surgeries was just three days after he was born.
Now the family is preparing to spend Christmas in hospital. However, Davison said they had received an ‘‘early Christmas present’’ yesterday when they were told Cameron would be transferred from intensive care to a ward today.
The news follows a harrowing few weeks of tests and surgery.
"He’s a lot tougher than we are. You only have to look into his eyes and it makes you want to fight a bit longer,’’ Davison said.
It was easy to forget the struggles ahead when Cameron’s parents cuddled him in his first few hours of life.
‘‘He had nothing attached to him. He was a perfect baby,’’ Davison said.
It was now up to Cameron to put on weight – either so his mitral valve can develop normally or, failing that, so doctors can insert a mechanical valve once the newborn reaches 5kg.
He had gained 20g in 24 hours at the time of his last weigh-in to reach 2.68kg, 57g lower than his birth weight.
Unable to give a return date to his employer in Pleasant Point, Davison had to abandon his work as the family prepared to live in Auckland for at least the next couple months.
Heart Kids South Canterbury secretary and family support Nicky Merritt said the charity had ‘‘a box full of prezzies’’ to send up to Cameron and his family, thanks to donations from Family Works and the Pleasant Point Lions.
‘‘Hopefully it will make it a wee bit like Christmas for them,’’ Merritt said.