Letters page

Many of our members say the first thing they do when they get the Journal is turn to the reader letters section. Here is just one of the hundreds of letters we receive from members wanting to share their experiences.

This is Josie 

I would love to share with you this story about my daughter Josie. 

Josie is four and a half years old and has already had three heart bypass operations in her short little life. During Josie's second op in August 1998, Josie's consultant told me that there were complications in theatre and that she was almost certainly going to die. Josie was in theatre 12 hours and by some miracle they managed to save her. Josie was brought up to ITU on an ECMO machine, which was keeping her alive. On her fourth day on ECMO the doctors said that we would have to talk about turning it off, otherwise Josie would be in hospital attached to it forever, but they didn't hold out much hope for her without it. 

The ECMO was switched off and, by another miracle, Josie lived, although still gravely ill. 

Josie survived like this for another few days and then the doctors gave me the worst news of all. Josie needed another operation, the following day. If she didn't have this operation she would almost certainly suffer a massive heart attack and die. If Josie did have this op, she only had a 1% chance of survival anyway. After all she'd come through already, it just didn't seem fair. 

Josie had the operation and survived. In fact, the operation was a complete success - so successful that, one week later, Josie was back at home and within one month, Josie was walking.   

Now that's a miracle! 

Paula Rickerby

Parent Member

Kent