We’ve got our cheeky boy back. It’s best present ever
life no longer hangs in the balance after paediatric heart specialist Dr Pedro del Nido and his team battled for eight hours to remove the tumour, understood to be one of the biggest they had encountered.
Oliver may now be able to return home in time for Christmas – the best present his parents could have hoped for.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror from their rented apartment in Boston, Lydia said: “For the first time since he was born, Oliver has a chance at living a full life. We hope to have him home in time for Christmas and we’re going to be spoiling him with love. It’s been such an emotional rollercoaster for all of us.
“We knew that by agreeing to the surgery there was a chance we could lose him. But we had no choice – there was no other option and we knew he couldn’t be on medication for the rest of his life.
“We were doing the only thing we could to save him. So we just had to trust in the surgeons and, thankfully, Dr del Nido is an amazing man.
“We owe everything to him. How do you say it? Thank you is never enough. He’s a hero without a cape.
“Now, we have our cheeky little boy back – he’s so full of life and trying to walk by himself. There’s no stopping him.”
It has been an extraordinary journey for the family, from Wantage, Oxfordshire, who were told the NHS did not have the expertise to carry out the surgery – and that it was “near impossible” the NHS would fund US treatment.
The tumour caused Oliver’s pulse to race dangerously fast in episodes known as ventricular tachycardia, or VT. Lydia, 28, who works in the legal profession and Tim, 30, a police officer, were told his only option in the UK was a heart transplant.
But, as a baby, Oliver was unlikely to get a heart and could die on the waiting list. Even if a donor was found, many patients fail to survive beyond 15 years. Lydia said: “I asked the doctor if I’d be burying my child in 15 years – she said, ‘Yes’.”
Oliver was on medication four times a day and in just six months his heart had to be shocked three times to return the pulse to a normal rhythm. But thanks to their campaigning, NHS England agreed to fund Oliver’s case and sent along two NHS surgeons – including Dr Shankar Sadagopan, Oliver’s consultant from Southampton Children’s Hospital – to observe the procedure. It means the surgery could, in future, be carried out in UK hospitals. It was hoped Oliver would be treated in January, after his birthday, but he was rushed to Boston three weeks ago when surgeons decided the op could be delayed no longer.
The procedure involves opening the chest cavity and placing the heart on a bypass machine while the tumour is surgically removed.
With such tiny hearts, it is precise and highly demanding surgery.
Before Oliver’s operation, his veins were precisely mapped, with dye injected and monitored on an MRI machine.
At 7.30am on November 20 he was How Sunday Mirror told Oliver’s story in June