F
Foxxy74
Another example of the fine work performed by those at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane Australia.
Heart girl Sarah a rare breed
KAY DIBBEN 11dec05
BABY Sarah Hopsick ? born with one of the world's rarest heart problems ? comes from a family of heart surgery survivors. Her father Michael, 31, of Bracken Ridge in Brisbane, and his sisters Brenda, 28, and Cassandra, 26, were born with congenital heart defects. Each had a ventricular septal defect ? a hole between the heart's two pumping chambers. When Michael was a baby, he had surgery to fix a hole in his heart and Cassandra had open-heart surgery just before her fifth birthday. But none faced a more life-threatening situation than Sarah, believed to be the youngest person in the world to have her rare heart condition. Now 14 months and thriving, Sarah is one of about 12 people worldwide known to have an aneurism of the interventricular septum ? a "blow out" of the septum dividing the heart's chambers. She was only eight weeks old and her heart was the size of a small orange when she had life-saving surgery at Brisbane's Prince Charles Hospital to cut out the aneurism. Pediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Peter Pohlner, who had never done such an operation, told parents Michael and Natalie their daughter might not survive. The hospital's pediatric cardiologist Dr Dorothy Radford said the Hopsick family was a rare case. "To have such an intense family occurrence of ventricular septal defect is also very uncommon," she said. Sarah's grandparents Gay and Robert Hopsick have spent years visiting Prince Charles with their children and Sarah. "If that hospital wasn't there, my children and my granddaughter wouldn't be alive today," Mrs Hopsick said. The Hopsick family's story will be one of several told in a history book for which the hospital is gathering details from staff, patients and their families. privacy terms © Queensland Newspapers
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17524989%5E2765,00.html
Hope people get something useful from this.
Chris.
Heart girl Sarah a rare breed
KAY DIBBEN 11dec05
BABY Sarah Hopsick ? born with one of the world's rarest heart problems ? comes from a family of heart surgery survivors. Her father Michael, 31, of Bracken Ridge in Brisbane, and his sisters Brenda, 28, and Cassandra, 26, were born with congenital heart defects. Each had a ventricular septal defect ? a hole between the heart's two pumping chambers. When Michael was a baby, he had surgery to fix a hole in his heart and Cassandra had open-heart surgery just before her fifth birthday. But none faced a more life-threatening situation than Sarah, believed to be the youngest person in the world to have her rare heart condition. Now 14 months and thriving, Sarah is one of about 12 people worldwide known to have an aneurism of the interventricular septum ? a "blow out" of the septum dividing the heart's chambers. She was only eight weeks old and her heart was the size of a small orange when she had life-saving surgery at Brisbane's Prince Charles Hospital to cut out the aneurism. Pediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Peter Pohlner, who had never done such an operation, told parents Michael and Natalie their daughter might not survive. The hospital's pediatric cardiologist Dr Dorothy Radford said the Hopsick family was a rare case. "To have such an intense family occurrence of ventricular septal defect is also very uncommon," she said. Sarah's grandparents Gay and Robert Hopsick have spent years visiting Prince Charles with their children and Sarah. "If that hospital wasn't there, my children and my granddaughter wouldn't be alive today," Mrs Hopsick said. The Hopsick family's story will be one of several told in a history book for which the hospital is gathering details from staff, patients and their families. privacy terms © Queensland Newspapers
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17524989%5E2765,00.html
Hope people get something useful from this.
Chris.
