Race against time to find third heart to save Ella
Girl, 8, needs heart transplant No2
A MUM is pleading for a “second miracle” to save her eight-year-old girl who could die at any time without another new heart.
Ella Dee is facing a race against the clock as she waits for a third heart after her first donor organ stopped beating.
Little Ella is in intensive care hooked up to a mechanical heart as her parents look on helplessly.
“It’s unbearable and I’m absolutely terrified. I’ve never felt pain like this,” said her mum Alice Holton, 27, as she remained by Ella’s bedside in Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.
Hoping that a new heart could mean a new beginning for her brave little girl, Alice said of Ella: “She felt amazing after the last transplant.
“For the first time she was able to ride a bike. I just want to see my little girl riding that bike again... I want to see her bouncing on a trampoline again.”
Ella is top of an emergency waiting list for a transplant.
Alice said: “I can’t believe she’s having to go through this all over again. Time is everything right now.
“Ella will die if she doesn’t get a transplant. I’m constantly crying and not sleeping at all.
“Her life is completely out of our hands now. All we can do is sit and wait and hope.”
Alice backs the Mirror’s campaign for a law change which would boost organ donations and save lives.
We are calling for the opt-out system in England, giving the hope of life to 6,335 desperately ill people, including 182 children, on the transplant waiting list.
Alice pleaded: “Please, if any family is in the horrible situation where a loved one is being taken from them, would they think of my daughter and children like her and donate their organs. This could save children’s lives, including my own.”
Ella received her first heart transplant in 2015 but after an infection last month her body rejected the organ.
She has spent the past seven weeks in intensive care and this week her heart stopped beating for two days and an
Whatever Ella is faced with, she tells us she can do it ALICE HOLTON MOTHER OF BRAVE HEART GIRL
artificial mechanical heart was fitted while she waits for a donor.
“We are completely broken but Ella’s strength is somehow getting us through,” said Alice, from Whinney Banks, Middlesbrough. She has split from Ella’s dad Darren Dee, 29, but together they broke the news to Ella this week that she needs a third heart.
Alice explained: “She cannot talk because of a breathing tube but when we told her about it, her eyes went wide and she squeezed our hands.
“She is so strong. Whatever she is faced with she always tells us she can do it.” Alice said that her daughter’s heart stopped beating on Monday, starting
again on Wednesday, after the mechanical heart was put in place. But instead of the normal 90 to 100bpm, Ella’s has become dangerously low at 40.
“There is concern it could stop again at any moment,” she said. “There are a lot of risks being on a mechanical heart.
“We have been told to spend as much time as possible with Ella in case the worst happens,” said Alice, also mum to 10-month old Evie.
She went on: “I feel so helpless. We need another miracle now.”
Ella was diagnosed with a major heart defect while still in the womb.
After she was born she was transferred to the Freeman where, at just three weeks old, she had heart surgery. Further surgery followed but, by 2012, doctors were becoming increasingly worried. She was put on the NHS Organ Donor Register and, seven months later, a heart was found. Soon after her op in May 2015 Ella was back at home and back at school.
However, last month she came down with a bug.
Alice said: “I went to wake her and she was really weak. I called an ambulance. We thought she only needed fluid drained so the last thing she said was: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be home in a week.’
“But fluid started to build up in her face and around her stomach, one of the signs of transplant rejection.” Ella had the fluid removed but her heart rate plummeted two weeks ago. A pacemaker and ECMO, which pumps blood round her body, failed to revive her heart and doctors realised she had coronary heart disease and urgently needed a new organ. Ella’s first transplant featured on the Channel 5 series Gift of Life and touched Britain. Her mum reflected: “She was very close to the end last time. This time it’s worse. She’s a bundle of joy and puts so many smiles on everyone’s faces.”