James was born on the 24th February 2011,  he was born with only one kidney which I thought was his only health complaint until the doctor who did the discharge check on him found a murmur.  Following this  he was rushed down to the Special Care Unit until he was transferred to Manchester Children’s Hospital  and placed under the care of the cardiologists.

They diagnosed James with severe aortic stenosis, he was closely monitored for a few days but let home on the grounds that James would need open heart surgery as soon as possible.   At three weeks old James had his surgery at Alder Hey.  He was in Intensive Care longer than expected, but after thirteen long days he was transferred to the specialist cardiac ward K2, from where he was released a few days later.

Three weeks later at a scan to see if surgery was successful they discovered the surgery hadn’t gone quite to plan, so they planned a valvotomy which he had at three months old. Since then he has been on six-monthly checks under Manchester Children’s Hospital’s cardiologists – who do an amazing job with him.  He has a slight leak in his mitral valve and the measurements have been pretty good for  his aortic valve.  He is now a very lively, very active cheeky little chap who is medication free for now. There are plans for more surgery as James gets older but as to when we don’t yet know.

By James’ mum Donna