Little survivor has the heart of a superhero
LITTLE Jaxon Gilmour is proud of his “Tony Stark heart” – because its Iron Man heroics have defied the odds to make him a thriving three-year-old.
Jaxon was born with a rare heart defect and doctors gave him 48 hours to live due to multiple organ failure four days after birth.
He also developed blood clots on his liver, bleeds to his brain and abdomen and dangerously high blood pressure.
But thanks to doctors’ determination, he survived and parents Amanda and Derek were proud to see him start nursery full-time this his month.
Amanda, 35, said: “He knows he has a special heart and he calls it his Tony Stark heart because he has a special heart, too. He absolutely loves the Avengers.
“He’s amazing. Even now,, at every appointment the doctors tors say they don’t know how he survived.”
Just hours after Jaxon was as born on February 2, 2017 at Glasgow’s Princess Royal Maternity Hospital, his skin turned “bluey-purple”. He was diagnosed with Ebstein’s anomaly, which meant a malformed heart valve hindered blood flow to his lungs and the rest of his body.
Medics gave him medication to keep open a blood vessel to the lungs which naturally closes soon after birth.
But complications cut off blood and oxygen supply to the rest of his body and his organs started to shut down.
Amanda, of Salsburgh, Lanarkshire, said: “The cardiologist told us we needed to call our parents because he wasn’t going to last the next 24 to 48 hours. He was dying pretty much in front of us and there was nothing we could do.” Amanda, an advanced nurse practitioner, said paediatric consultant Mark Davidson and his team found a vein in his neck to administer life-saving drugs.
Jaxon spent the next two weeks on a ventilator and needed dialysis to help his kidneys work.
He was tube fed for a year and this summer was well enough to come off all medication.
Doctors say he is likely to need major surgery to repair the faulty tricuspid valve in the next year but he has defied expectations to meet all developmental milestones.
Amanda said: “Every day he surprises me. Next year when he starts school I don’t think there will be tears, I will just be filled with pride.”