Our beautiful daughter Jessica was born in September 2011 with a severe heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. This was diagnosed at her 20 week scan and we were initially told that she was unlikely to be suitable for surgery. However, a pioneering in-utero operation at 28 weeks to enlarge a hole in her atrial septum was carried out and she was able to make it to term and get through her first open-heart surgery at just eight hours old. Jessica underwent five more surgeries during her life. Her final surgery - the Fontan procedure - took place in December 2017. She initially made a good recovery but sadly passed away suddenly on 14th April 2018 at the age of 6. This is the story of a little girl whose half a heart overflowed with love. She was, and will forever be, our little miracle and brought joy to all who knew her.

Friday 16 December 2011

Starting to wake up a little

After all the excitement of the surgery and having to have her chest re-opened, Jessica had a fairly quiet 24 hours being kept heavily sedated and ventilated to allow her time to recover. Thankfully things remained stable during this time and the surgical team were happy to re-close her chest again on PICU this morning.

Now that her chest has been closed, the drugs which are keeping Jessica still and sedated can be reduced and stopped and so she has gradually started to move a little more and has opened her eyes a few times when we have been giving her a kiss and talking to her – just to check that Mummy and Daddy are there before going back to sleep again as she is still very sleepy. She has also been starting to have small amounts of mummy milk again through her feeding tube.

At the moment, she is doing well although her kidneys are struggling a little bit and she is needing a higher dose of the diuretics to help with this. This is likely to be due to her having such a long operation and her kidneys just hopefully need a little time to recover from this. If all continues to be well overnight then hopefully she will have the ventilator tube taken out in the morning.

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4 comments:

  1. operababe16 December 2011 at 22:32

    Excellent news. What a little fighter she is! Love from Auntie Marls x

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  2. Sally Eyre17 December 2011 at 01:46

    Go Jessica.

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  3. Anonymous17 December 2011 at 13:47

    So glad to hear that prayer is still being answered. How beautiful she is and such a little fighter. Sent with love and much prayer. Eva (Green)

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  4. Louise20 December 2011 at 14:48

    Thank you. She certainly is a little fighter! x

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