TINY Kyah Azzopardi is a medical marvel, with the nine-month-old’s walnut-sized heart so riddled with holes that doctors likened it to Swiss cheese.
The miracle bub, from Kurrimine Beach, south of Innisfail, fought the odds through three open-heart surgeries, an operation to fix a perforation in her small intestine and a pacemaker implantation.
Mother Erin Neibling said that arriving home last week was a relief after she and Mr Azzopardi watched their first-born spend six intense months in Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital.
“She spent four months in ICU and two months in the cardiac ward,” she said.
“She is a very strong little girl. She is coping well. She has had a very rough run.”
Kyah was three months old before doctors discovered the wall dividing the left and right ventricles of her heart had a 2.47cm hole. “She was OK until about six weeks of age,” Ms Neibling said.
“Then she was just failing to thrive, it was very difficult feeding, she had no energy, wasn’t growing and she was fast breathing. She was in heart failure.”
Ms Neibling took her daughter to the doctor and Innisfail Hospital before being flown to Townsville Hospital, where little Kyah spent six days until she was flown to see Brisbane’s top pediatric cardiology team.
The relieved mum said doctors spent nine hours trying to patch Kyah’s tiny heart in her first surgery in September, only to find five more holes during the operation.
“I couldn’t really process it at the time … The surgeon said: ‘See you in four hours,’ ” she said.
Ms Neibling said she was beyond thankful to the team that treated Kyah.
“There were a lot of times we were thinking we wouldn’t be bringing a baby home,” she said.
“They saved her life.”