Hannah’s Story as told by her mother Julie Ranson
Hannah was born at Poole hospital on 31st May, 2002.
I had a normal pregnancy and all the scans etc were fine.
After having Hannah I transferred to Bournemouth hospital where I was due to have a couple of days rest as I had two other young children at home, Charlie 15 months and Faith 2 ½ years old.
Just after transferring to Bournemouth the midwife noticed Hannah was a bit ‘dusky’ around her lips and took her away to clear any mucus on her chest which sometimes happens during birth.
After a while I was starting to wonder where she was and thought she was showing my beautiful baby off to the other members of staff. When I went in search of her I found them resuscitating her in a side room.
A doctor came over from Poole and they told me they thought there was something wrong with her heart.
She was then taken to Poole and stabilized before being taken to Southampton General hospital.
Once at Southampton, the consultant on duty in Intensive care diagnosed Hannah’s condition as Ebsteins Anomaly of the Tricuspid Valve. They told us there was nothing they could do and to prepare ourselves for the worst.
Hannah continued to improve and after a 6 week stay at Southampton I was finally allowed to take her home. The doctors could only wait and see how she grew to decide what course of action they would take regarding her treatment.
After regular checkups it was decided she would need some surgical intervention and by the time she was 8 years old her oxygen level had dropped so much that she was barely able to do anything. She had always been limited but had deteriorated to such an extent that she had to have open heart surgery to improve the quality of her life.
On October 12th 2010 she had her first operation at Southampton General hospital. Due to the complex nature of her condition she was also fitted with a pacemaker.
Although things improved for a short while afterwards, Hannah was still very limited.
Following more checkups it was discovered that the valve Hannah had replaced had ‘broken down’ and further surgery would be needed.
Again due to the complexity of her condition we were warned against the possibility of the operation not working and her requiring a second operation which was very rarely performed on a child her age and came with its own problems.
Hannah was very, very reluctant to have any further surgery as she was naturally frightened that it may not work and how she would cope with the recovery side too as she remembered her first operation with great clarity.
After spending many months convincing Hannah that surgery was our only hope of her feeling any better and living any sort of ‘normal’ life, she finally agreed to have it done and had her second open heart surgery at Southampton General hospital on 28th April, 2016.
As soon as she woke up in intensive care she told us that she felt so much better.
She came home after 7 days and has continued to go from strength to strength, doing things a normal teenage girl should be doing instead of having to just sit on the settee all day due to her lack of oxygen.
There have been so many people involved in Hannah’s care over the years. All the staff at Poole hospital and Southampton General hospital have been absolutely FANTASTIC!
We will never be able to thank them enough for all they have done for Hannah so we are now taking part in an event that will raise money for the Ocean Ward (E1) at Southampton General hospital to enable us to ‘give something back’ in recognition for the great work they do.