The best Two miracle tots are back home for Xmas
TWO families will be waking up to a Christmas miracle tomorrow – having their sick young children home.
The lives of both vulnerable tots have hung in the balance but they have been allowed out of hospital.
Little Ella Wiseman, who turns two on Tuesday, is eagerly awaiting Santa after having been given a lifesaving heart transplant.
And for 18- month- old Arlo Newcombe, who has a rare lung condition, Christmas is his first time out of hospital ever, thanks to his home being specially adapted.
A few months ago there seemed little hope for Ella.
Her heart was failing and no heart donor could be found.
She was put on an artificial heart pump and her mum Amy Ash, 22, faced a harrowing wait, fearing her girl would die before a new organ could be found.
Amazing
But a few weeks ago Ella received a lifeline when the heart of a twoyear-old boy became available.
And after a successful operation at the Freeman Hospital i n Newcastle, Ella was allowed home.
She said: “It has been an agonising six months during which I thought I would lose my baby.”
Ella was on three pumps. After four months a blood clot broke off and lodged in her brain. She was paralysed down one side but has since regained almost all of her movement. Amy said: “When she got the heart it was just the most enormous relief.
“The wait was nerveracking and after six months you think you are never going to get the call. Now she is doing absolutely fine. We go back every day for tests and cardiologists say she is making amazing progress.”
Amy detected something was wrong when Ella was ten months old. The tot was initially prescribed antibiotics and, a week later, incorrectly diagnosed, firstly with pneumonia and then, by a North West hospital, with dilated cardiomyopathy.
The Freeman pinpointed the problem in June – a rare condition called abnormal coronary artery.
The left side of her heart was starved of oxygen since birth. Amy said: “Newcastle said she could have been fixed with surgery and no heart transplant but the problem was spotted too late and her heart was too damaged.”
Amy is seeking answers about this but for the moment she is just so relieved her daughter is now fighting fit and ready to face the future.
Over Christmas Amy’s parents, brother and sister will fly in from the Isle of Man to see Ella.
She said: “I can’t thank the doctors enough at Newcastle for getting the diagnosis right and then doing such a brilliant transplant.” But Ella isn’t the only child smiling. Equally heart-warming is the miracle of Arlo spending his first Christmas at home. He needs such high levels of oxygen and ventilation to breathe that medics thought it might be impossible for him to go home. His lungs are unable to work at all. He uses 12 litres of oxygen an hour attached to a large machine – the equivalent of an oxygen cylinder every 30 minutes. But last week Arlo came home by ambulance to be greeted by his two brothers, Lucca, eight, and Sonny, four. Mum Chantal, 37, said: “We’ve been camped in paediatric intensive