Diagnosis and early treatment
My son Dylan was born via emergency caesarean section on 28 July 2025, but he wasn’t crying properly when he was born. He sneezed and cried a bit
before going silent. That’s when I knew something wasn’t quite right.
As they finished my surgery other doctors were attending to Dylan. They then informed us that he was struggling either due to an infection or a heart condition. All I could think was please don’t be the worse one. I was taken to the recovery room while they continued to work on Dylan. I hadn’t even seen him yet. My partner, Daniel, was able to go and see him briefly before joining me while we waited for news from the doctor. A short time later he came to us and said that Dylan was seriously ill with a previously undetected heart condition. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell us any more than that and he needed to be transferred to Leeds Children’s Hospital where they have children’s heart specialists who can diagnose and treat him.
About four hours later we got to see our son properly for the first time in his incubator just before the ambulance arrived to take him to Leeds. Daniel went with him while I remained at Sheffield Children’s Hospital as they wanted to check I was safe to travel. Being away from Dylan and not knowing what was happening was awful. It was a real struggle for me to be on the labour ward, hearing the other mums with their babies while mine was being rushed to a different hospital. The ambulance then returned later to take me to Leeds as well. While Dylan was admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) Daniel and I were given a temporary room in the hospital. Dylan was diagnosed with Transposition of the Great Arteries, where the two main vessels in the heart are connected the wrong way round, reducing the amount of oxygen he could pump around his body. Being told that news was devastating. It’s hard to put into words how worried we were, but the doctors reassured us that even though he’d need a big open-heart surgery to swap his arteries back the correct way there was a high survival rate.
Support from The Sick Children’s Trust
As Dylan would be in the hospital for some time the nurses sorted us with a place to stay with The Sick Children’s Trust at Eckersley House. It was absolutely amazing. With the ‘Home from Home’ so close to the hospital we could go and see Dylan any time we wanted day or night. It allowed us to have much needed breaks from the ward and get some rest while always being so close to him. It helped us massively and without the charity’s support we’d have driven to and from Sheffield every day. While it is only about 45 minutes in the car every second spent travelling was precious time away from our baby boy. Eckersley House made sure we could see him as much as possible.
With Dylan improving slightly over the next few days they pushed his operation back so that he could be as strong as possible for it. However, when he was a week old whenever we went to feed him his heart rate and temperature started to spike as it was putting too much strain on his heart, so the time had come for his open heart surgery. He was in the operating room for eight hours, but the surgery was successful. He then spent a total of three weeks in hospital. Throughout that time we stayed at Eckersley House so we could aid in his care and be there to look after him. Our parents could visit us and being together to support each other through this difficult time just made things that little bit easier.
Since recovering and first Christmas
Dylan recovered really quickly form his surgery and since leaving hospital he’s been doing amazingly well. He’s 16 weeks old now and hitting all his milestones. The doctors have been so pleased with his progress during our checkups and he’s made perfect progress. He’s likely to need another small surgery to widen his artery as he gets older but that will not be for a few years yet.
We’ve got big plans for his first Christmas, seeing Santa and being with all the family. Having children round for Christmas just makes it so magical so we can’t wait to celebrate Dylan’s first one. He might only be young and not really know what is going on but we’re going to have a big celebration to mark how far he has come. The Sick Children’s Trust made such a huge difference to us and we know that other families will be receiving that same support while staying in their ‘Homes from Home’ this Christmas. Anything you can do to support this wonderful charity will be greatly appreciated by all the families.
Kirsty Watson, Dylan’s mum
