Amazing staff have turned Beth around (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Amazing staff have turned Beth around

The Gazette is raising money for the Springboard Opportunity Group in Chippenham. ZO MILLS spoke to a family who have been helped by the pre-school.

WATCHING three-year-old Beth Picter giggling away, it's hard to believe everything she's been through.

By the time she was 20 months old, she'd already had major heart surgery three times and been diagnosed with a rare syndrome called DiGeorge.

But just over a year since her last operation, the brave tot is making the most of her newfound energy.

"She's a totally different little girl," said her parents Julie and Rodney. "She couldn't walk before the operation and now she's running around everywhere."

Beth was diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition when she was just six days old. That day, the lives of her family including brothers Ryan, nine, and Joe, six, were turned upside down.

"We were absolutely gutted," said Mrs Picter. "We'd always wanted a little girl, then we got her and found we might lose her again. Nobody could believe it."

The condition, Fallots Tetrology, means Beth has five different things wrong with her heart. The main two are a large hole and an extreme tightening of the pulmonary valve, leaving blood with just a pin-prick sized gap to pump through.

"When the consultant told us my husband passed out on the floor," said Mrs Picter. "They couldn't wake him up for five minutes. They told us Beth would need an operation to survive."

Beth then underwent regular scans while the family waited to hear when the surgery would take place

Mrs Picter said: "She didn't seem to be getting any worse and we were chuffed to bits. But one day we were with the consultant when he listened to her heart and said he thought she needed open heart surgery there and then. She'd deteriorated so badly.

"But three days later they told us the surgery was too dangerous, and she might not make it off the operating table. Instead, they had to do closed heart surgery as a temporary fix."

At five months old, Beth had a shunt inserted in her heart to redirect the flow of blood. Just six days after she was allowed home, Beth was rushed back into hospital with a virus and the family spent her first Christmas and New Year at her bedside.

In between the heart problems and constant trips to hospital, the cause of Beth's heart problems was found. She had a syndrome called DiGeorge, which meant she had a chromosome missing. She also suffers from learning and speech difficulties, and has problems with food.

Mr and Mrs Picter always knew Beth would need open heart surgery at some point, and that time came in March 2004.

"In the January she started passing out through lack of oxygen," said Mrs Picter. "It was her way of telling us she needed the main repair operation."

Beth underwent the five-hour operation at Bristol Children's Hospital. Mrs Picter said: "She fought it all the way and was home in five days. After ten days at home she walked for the first time. It was unbelievable. It just showed how much her heart had been holding her back."

Beth still has a leaking valve and will need a replacement operation within the next five or six years. Apart from that, her life has been transformed.

She has been a pupil at Chippenham-based Springboard, North Wiltshire's only pre-school for children with special needs, since she was eight months old a day her mother will always remember.

"It was the best thing that's ever happened to us," she said. "We have friends who are lovely but don't really know how we are feeling, but everyone at Springboard is in the same position as us. It turned our lives around big time.

"Beth's come on leaps and bounds with her speech. She used to say nothing but she's babbling on in her own way now. She's an outgoing, sociable, loving girl.

"When I drop her off at Springboard she waves goodbye to me, telling me to go. The staff are amazing and have been incredibly supportive throughout everything.

"We've just been so lucky to go there. We couldn't have coped without them."

Pub fundraiser

A HUGE fun day is being planned at the Kingfisher Pub in Chippenham on August 28 to raise funds for the Gazette's Springboard Appeal.

Barmaid Tania Cook, who is a family friend of Springboard tot Hatti Simms and ran the Bath Half Marathon for the appeal earlier this year, promised it would be a fantastic event.

"We've got loads going on, including a car boot sale first thing in the morning, then the actual fun day with bouncy castles, a barbecue, skittles, inflatable boxing and much more," she said. "It finishes with a disco in the evening.

"Also the owner Steve Cole will be having his hairy chest waxed at some point to raise some extra cash. It should be a really fantastic day."

Half of the money raised from the event will be going to a cancer charity and the rest towards Springboard.