William Prince AKA Prince Wills as named by PICU On the eve of 4th September 2015 suffered a heart attack at just 8days old with no warning signs other than he was off his feeds for the day.
After initially being taken via ambulance to Bolton Royal we were transferred to Alder Hey.
William was given 3.4% chance of survival after finding out the cause for his heart attack was due to a rare virus 'Neonatal Enteroviral Myocarditis' a virus that to you or me would just be a common cold but this particular strand can be fatal.
William spent some 11weeks in PICU where he had to go on a life support machine called ECMO so the surgeons could repair the damage done to his heart & give him chance to heal 'IF' he was going to. During his time on Ecmo his canula slipped and caused William to have a 4minute down time & lack of oxygen supply to his brain, where brain damage was a big possibility. During his time in 1C he caught RSV Bronchialitis just 4days before we were expecting to go home, but
William exceeded all medical expectations and as we had said from the beginning he got home in time for christmas, for just 12 days.
William got another deadly virus this time found in his broviac line. He had contrapted Klebsiella Pneumoniae where again this mutates and is mostly resistant to antibiotics. Thankfully he responded to them and is now home thriving and starting to develop as any other 5 month old should, he has some visual challenges as he has a nystagmus but is improving, he has no option with his big sister Isabelle always there to play with him.
We just want to say a huge thank you to Alder Hey for not only believing in our son, saving his life & treating us as family but for going that extra mile to make sure we were ok even in the worst situations they made us smile. We want to raise as much money as possible for PICU in particular to spend on either ventilation or on ECMO training, if we raise enough, buy another cart.