SHANAY MORRISON has undergone a high-risk cardiac surgical procedure at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) in Kingston and is now looking forward to his 10th birthday.
Her case was not unlike that of Akeem Byfield, who in June of this year will celebrate his sixth birthday.
Akeem was born with a large hole in his heart, a condition which stunted his growth. A more serious complication of his condition was the increased flow of blood into his lungs which made him prone to cardiac failure and respiratory infections. Now he is a healthy child following successful surgery in 1995 by volunteers brought in by the Jamaica Foundation for Cardiac Disease.
Pulmonary artery
Shanay's mom, Marlene Morrison, after noticing her child was losing weight, took her to the paediatric clinic, where the test showed that she had congenital heart disease. Further tests showed that she had a condition known as Patent Ductus Arteriosus -- a connection between the pulmonary artery, which takes deoxygenated or "blue" blood to the lungs and the aorta, which takes the oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
This connection is usually
present in the foetus and closes off in the first few days of life. In some children, however, it remains open and has to be closed surgically. When Shanay was 13 months old, she underwent surgery to correct the
condition.
Long after that procedure, however, She continued to have heart murmurs. An echocardiogram showed an abnormal narrowing just below her aortic valve. This meant regular visits to the clinic. Surgery to correct this problem was considered too risky to attempt at her young age. Unlike other children her age, she was not free to run and play: any strenuous exercise could result in fainting spells or total collapse.
Surgical correction was recommended for the child's condition in 1991. Attempts to have this done abroad, with the assistance of her family, were unsuccessful.
In February, this year, she had further cardiac investigations. This involved two types of tests. The first was a repeat echocardiogram. The second was a cardiac catheterisation, a process by which a catheter, or long tube, is passed through the blood vessels in the leg into the heart. This allows measurement of the pressures in the heart and the level of oxygen in the blood.
A dye is also injected into the heart via the catheter and X-ray pictures are taken. These studies provide detailed information about the heart function and structure and help the surgeon plan the surgical approach.
Shanay's echocardiogram was abnormal. It showed a thickened left ventricle, caused by the increased pressure it was under to push the blood through the narrow area below the aortic valve. Her catheterisation test confirmed that she had a severe narrowing below the aortic valve and showed very high pressures in the left ventricle.
The cardiology team at the UHWI, worried about Shanay, recommended urgent surgery to correct her condition which was life-threatening. Approaches were made to a number of hospitals in the USA for Shanay and other urgent cases.
"We tried to send her abroad at the start of the year but were unable to do so," recalls Dr. Millard-Bullock, UHWI's paediatric cardiologist and a member of the Jamaica Foundation for Cardiac Disease. Many American institutions which used to offer assistance had been experiencing financial cuts, she noted.
High priority
Help came from the UK. Shanay was placed on the high priority list for surgery during the July visit of a cardiac team led by noted cardiothoracic surgeon, Professor, Sir Magdi Yacoub and patron of Chain of Hope. The team's visit was facilitated by the Jamaica Foundation for Cardiac Disease.
She was among the first set of children to have surgery. She underwent surgery on July 15, two days after Professor Yacoub's arrival in Jamaica. Her surgery lasted for about two-and-a-half hours and she spent two days
in the Intensive Care Unit where her recovery was carefully monitored.
In the hospital, a member of the family was always with her. Her father, who is a farm worker in the United States of America, made frequent calls home, anxious to learn about the progress of his beloved daughter.
When he heard that she had made it safely through surgery, he said, "Thank God."
