Carry on smiling! Little Ellis, picture of health just a year after hole-in-heart surgery
HIS beaming smile lit up the hospital ward after he had life-saving surgery aged just three months.
And it seems little Ellis Disney and his mother Stephanie have hardly stopped smiling since, as these pictures show.
Ellis had surgery to repair a hole in the heart just over a year ago and is now a picture of health. To Mrs Disney and her husband Charlie, his smile is a reminder of both his progress and the ordeal the family went through.
Mrs Disney, 28, a pre-school teaching assistant from Woolston, Southampton, gave birth to 4lb 14oz Ellis six weeks prematurely on April 1 last year.
Doctors were concerned that his breathing was laboured and tests revealed a ventricular septal defect – a large hole between the two sides of his heart.
He was too small for surgery, so Ellis was sent home and his parents were given special formula milk to build him up.
In July last year, by which time he weighed 11lb 9oz, surgeons at Southampton General Hospital repaired the hole using a synthetic patch. Ellis spent five days in hospital but even as he recovered,
‘Doctors can’t believe it’s the same baby’
his sparkling grin – despite the jagged scar running down his chest – was the reassurance his parents needed.
‘That picture really sums it up – we’d all had five days of hell, but to be leaving with a healthy baby made it all worthwhile,’ Mrs Disney said yesterday.
‘It was all a bit of a blur. It felt as if life couldn’t begin again properly until we had Ellis back home again.’
Since then, Ellis has made spectacular progress, growing so rapidly he now tips the scales at more than 2st.
‘He’s already such a big boy – when the surgeons see him now they question whether it’s the same baby,’ Mrs Disney said. ‘He’s a very happy baby, really relaxed and chilled out, he’s always smiling and has a very warm character.’
Ellis, who is not yet walking, will need regular check-ups throughout his life.
But his mother said: ‘He’ll be able to do anything a boy his age can, he’ll even be able to climb mountains when he’s older if that’s what he wants to do. We’re just so delighted with his progress, it’s a wonderful tribute to the surgeons who oper- ated on him. It was an incredibly stressful time, but hopefully it will show parents who go through what we have that their child can still lead a perfectly normal life.’
The couple, who also have a daughter, three-year-old Norah, have raised £500 for the ward where Ellis was looked after following his operation. They also paid tribute to the British Heart Foundation, which provided them with information about Ellis’s condition.
Ventricular septal defect is the most common form of congenital heart condition. The hole between the left and right ventricles means some oxygen-rich blood does not reach the body, putting strain on the heart and lungs. The condition affects about three in 1,000 newborns but in many cases small holes heal themselves and do not require surgery.