Miracle baby home
Published: December 12, 2005
MIRACLE baby Charla Appleton has defied the odds to be home with her parents this Christmas.
Doctors at Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane gave the tiny baby less than a 1 per cent chance she would live after major heart surgery at just eight days old.
But they don’t know we breed them tough in North Queensland.
Just weeks old she survived two heart attacks and baffled doctors with her will to live.
Her mother was told the words any parent would dread.
“I am very sorry to tell you I don’t think your baby will make the night,” the cardiologist told her distraught mother, Kristy Maddick as she waited patiently outside surgery.
They were almost right.
Little Charla’s heart stopped beating not once but twice.
The infant has a rare congenital heart defect called pulmonary artresia, a thin artery on the right ventricle of the heart which sends blood to the lungs to be oxygenated.
This artery was not only thin but it had failed to open.
Charla went into her first 4 1/2-hour heart operation with a 90 per cent chance she would live.
The 2035g baby came through that operation well.
And after spending five days in intensive care doctors gave her the go-ahead to breathe on her own.
But that’s when her condition worsened.
In the next 24 hours the little fighter’s life hung in the balance.
“I had been at home, where I was staying, and I called in to see if she was OK, they said she was fine so I went in there later,” Miss Maddick said.
“When I got there at about 10pm they told me her blood levels had gone down but her lactic acid levels went up which is not good.
“I was told to wait 20 minutes before I could see her and I knew something was wrong.
“The doctor came out and said ‘I am sorry to tell you I don’t think your baby will make the night.
“They were saying ‘tell your partner to come in quickly’. I was shocked. They had been saying she was OK.
“We watched as her oxygen levels dropped and she slowly turned blue from the toes to her head.
“I asked what are her chances. They gave her a 0.1 per cent chance.
“I didn’t accept that.”
At 2am Charla went into cardiac arrest but nursing staff and doctors massaged her heart for 20 minutes before it started to pump on its own again.
At 5am doctors said they were shocked she had survived the night.
Miss Maddick said hospital staff called her baby a ’survivor’ and ‘a mystery’.
She had recorded lactic acid levels up to 46 when 5 on the scale is considered high.
At 11am that same morning Charla went into arrest again but doctors were ready and caught her before the heart had a chance to skip a beat.
Charla’s tenacity for life prompted doctors to consider another operation and without one it was likely she would die, so at two weeks of age she was wheeled once again into an operating theatre.
“It was awful, I got to wear a gown and give a kiss goodbye before she went into the operation,” Miss Maddick said.
“The surgeon said, ‘I have to warn you I don’t think she will make it’.
“All of them were convinced she wouldn’t live.
“A chaplain came in to perform an emergency baptism — that was very sad.”
But Charla again showed the strength of human spirit was alive.
While she is not without complications, Charla is expected to live well but will undergo another heart operation next year.
Miss Maddick finally returned Charla home this week to her dad and big sister Deanna, 2.
Miss Maddick said Christmas would be a special time for the family who would spend the holidays getting to know and cuddling the tough little girl they have mostly been unable to hold.
She had nothing but praise for doctors and staff, adding she was surprised to meet four other Townsville families with young children at the hospital for heart surgery.
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