two open heart surgeries, a stroke and a battling spirit

Story by Claire Elliot

LITTLE Alex Crichton is a picture of health after battling back from the brink following two open heart surgeries and a stroke - all before his second birthday.

The 23-month-old was born with a rare heart defect and has been fighting for life since the day he was born.

But, when scans showed he suffered significant brain damage following a 10-hour heart operation in December, he was given less than 48 hours to live.

Doctors told his mum Julie, from Westhill, Aberdeenshire, that her tiny son had suffered a massive stroke and that even if he did survive there was a chance he would never walk, talk or even recognise her again.

Six months on, however, against the odds Alex, who had his first open heart surgery at just two weeks old, is like any other healthy toddler, running around causing mischief with 12-year-old sister Natalie.

And as Miss Crichton, 35, prepares to celebrate her son’s second birthday this month - a day she feared she would never see - she aims to raise vital funds for Glasgow’s Yorkhill Hospital as a thank you to the staff for saving her little boy.
 
She said: “Without them he would not be here.

“There was a time I really didn’t expect I would be taking him home.

“It was awful. A CT scan showed he had significant brain damage and I was told he would be lucky to last the weekend.

“It really was touch and go. But he proved them all wrong - and he did it all with a smile on his face. He is a true little fighter and a real inspiration. When I look at him now I am just so proud of him.”

Miss Crichton, who previously lost twins during pregnancy, first knew her son had a congenital heart defect after a scan showed an anomaly when she was just 11 weeks pregnant.

But it was not until she was 28 weeks pregnant that doctors confirmed her unborn child had truncus arteriosus.

The rare condition, which affects fewer than one in 10,000 children, left Alex without a working pulmonary artery, the main vessel that carries deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs.
 
As a result, the tot, who weighed a healthy 7lb 7oz at birth, had his first open heart surgery at just two weeks old to insert a donor artery.

Miss Crichton was told the procedure would last him five to fifteen years.

But when the artery started to fail less than year later, Alex was put on the emergency list for a new one.

The operation went ahead in December last year, when he was just 17 months old. But just 24 hours after what was his second open heart surgery, scans showed the tot had suffered a stroke.

He spent the next week in intensive care batting for life, was put back on a ventilator and had to be tube fed, with little hope of making a recovery.

Miss Crichton, a full-time mum, said: “It was devastating. He went into hospital being able to walk and talk and after the stroke he couldn’t even sit when I took him home. The doctors said he may not even recognise me again.

“I was petrified because I had this child with all these needs and I didn’t know how I was going to cope. He was just a newborn baby again and I didn’t know if he would ever crawl or walk again.”

Following months of intense physio, occupational, and speech and language therapy, however, Alex is back on his feet and chattering away like any other toddler.

He still has limited use of his left hand as a result of the stroke.

But Miss Crichton said: “They say that 18 months after a stroke is when you reach your full potential and that’s not even been a year yet for Alex. He has done absolutely brilliant and hopefully there will still be improvement.”

Alex will continue to get a yearly check-up to monitor his heart defect but his latest check-up on June 14 showed the second open heart surgery had been a success.

Miss Crichton knows that her son, who has had four operations - including two open heart surgeries - for the defect since he was born, might need further surgery in the future.

But she said: “He’s here and I am lucky to have him. I might not have Alex as long as I have my daughter but I might, you just never know.

“I’ve always maintained that it’s not the heart surgery that’s scary, it’s the complications because nobody knows who is at risk and it’s devastating when things go wrong. But we’ve got to live for today.

“I love him to bits and I wouldn’t change him for the world. He’s just amazing and it’s fantastic to see him running around, playing. It’s the best feeling in the world. You can’t put a price on it. I’m the proudest mum in the world.”

The single mum-of-two is now planning to stage a superhero-themed pub crawl around Aberdeen on September 17 to raise funds for Yorkhill Hospital, which houses Scotland’s only children’s cardiac centre.