LITTLE Freya Powell’s mother is set to host a charity raffle a year on from the heart surgery which saved her life.
Freya was born three weeks prematurely at Birmingham Women’s Hospital on December 5, 2013 weighing just 4lbs 12oz after doctors discovered she had stopped growing in the womb. An oxygen saturation test picked up issues with her heart and aged just six-days-old she was transferred to the city’s Children’s Hospital for surgery to repair a hole in her heart and a narrowed aorta.
The baby spent her first Christmas in hospital before coming home on New Year’s Eve.
Thankfully she has made a full recovery and, although very small for her age, she is reaching all her development milestones.
Now Lodge Park mom Michelle has decided to organise a raffle at the University of Birmingham, where she works as a technician in biomedical services, to coincide with the British Heart Foundation’s Wear It Beat It day.
She told the Standard: “All being well she shouldn’t have any problems now but it was a big scare. We are just lucky really the Women’s
Hospital do the test as not all hospitals do that and she didn’t look like she had anything wrong with her.
“Watching Freya in intensive care after the operation was horrible, she had tubes coming out everywhere and she was sedated. Bringing her home was amazing, it didn’t quite feel real. Now when you look at her you wouldn’t even think she’d gone through all of that.”
Michelle added her and husband Alex had been big supporters of the charity since Freya’s birth but she had now decided to run her own event. Prizes gathered already include a Liverpool FC family tour ticket, tickets for greyhound racing and for a butterfly farm.
E-mail [email protected] or visit www.justgiving.com/michelle-powell-wibi-7077/ to donate or buy a raffle ticket.
