PLUG-IN BABY
Battler with heart defect survives two major ops... and is now a lively toddler
HOOKED up to a tangle of wires and electrodes which monitored her brainwaves as she slept, Lacey-Janet Ambler was defying the odds at just 23 days old.
The little girl, who was born with a major heart defect, had already survived a respiratory arrest, seizures and had openheart surgery.
But Lacey’s fighting spirit came as no surprise to her parents – as they defied doctors to have her in the first place.
Lisa and Mike Ambler were advised six times to terminate the pregnancy after the heart problem was spotted at 20 weeks. They opted to press ahead and now, nearly three years and a further heart operation later, she is a thriving, energetic toddler.
Lacey was born with two holes in her heart and hypoplastic left heart syndrome, where the left ventricle does not develop properly and blood cannot flow through the heart.
Her first open heart surgery took place at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital when she was just eight days old, and in the first few weeks of her life she suffered multiple seizures and, once, stopped breathing in her mother’s arms.
Mrs Ambler, 35, an auxiliary nurse from Hull, said: ‘We refused to terminate the pregnancy and ever since her birth she has shown us what a little fighter she really is. Doctors recently discovered scarring around her heart at her six month check-up in January and they said she needed urgent surgery.
‘She knows she has a “poorly” heart. When I told her the doctors are going to fix it, she said, “I won’t be scared mummy”.
It was daunting leaving her at the hospital for her second operation. But she was fine. It took her about 30 minutes to wake up but then she was bossing me about and requesting her shows on YouTube.’
Mrs Ambler says Lacey, who turns three next Friday, has flourished since her second operation and plays with her sisters Faith-Rose, eight, and Frankie, one, like any other toddler.
‘Lacey is a funny little girl who is full of life,’ she added. ‘She has changed my life completely and taught me to appreciate everything.’