16242/9GAZETTE & HERALD: Brave Emily Hudd, who was born with only half a heart, is ill in hospital with a bone infection and kidney problems following a heart operation.

The eight-year-old's family are enduring an agonising wait to see if she will rally her strength and fight off the infection.

Dad Robbie Hudd is staying in special accommodation at the Bristol Children's Hospital while his beloved daughter is hooked up to a dialysis machine.

Mum Vikki, and Emily's two sisters are waiting anxiously at home in Ladyfield Road, Chippenham, and making frequent visits to the hospital to see Emily.

"Some days are better than others," said Mrs Hudd. "I spend all day worrying what Robbie is going to say when he rings me up from Bristol."

Emily had a shunt fitted in 2001, in the hope of improving her circulation and increasing her health and vitality.

But she has been waiting six months for this operation, because her circulation was still not good and she often looked very blue and suffered from being tired all the time.

Finally she was scheduled for the operation, which involves fitting a Glenn shunt, on May 8. The operation took five hours and at first all seemed to be well.

"It was supposed to be a straight forward operation, and she should have been home within ten days," said Mrs Hudd.

"But it didn't go according to plan. The first five days went really well, and then Emily's health suddenly went downhill.

"Her temperature went up and down, and she started getting pains in her legs and she couldn't walk properly."

Hospital staff ran a number of tests and checks to find out why Emily, who is a pupil at Frogwell Primary School, was unwell. On Tuesday last week they realised her kidneys were not working properly and she had a bone infection in her hip possibly as a result of new medication.

"We were very worried she would not be able to walk again, or that her kidneys wouldn't work," said Mrs Hudd.

"She is feeling a bit better now, but her kidneys are still not working and she has to get out and about in her wheelchair. They don't want her to try and walk anywhere until the infection clears up."

Emily has been in hospital two weeks now, and her father has stayed at Ronald MacDonald House to be close to her.

Fortunately his employers, Wavin, have proved very supportive and given him as much time off as he needs to be with his daughter.

Meanwhile Mrs Hudd is coping at home alone with Charlotte, aged three, and ten-year-old Melissa.

"I don't know when Emily will be coming home," Mrs Hudd said. "We go and visit three or four times a week, but Emily is getting bored and misses her friends at school."

The little girl is also missing some home cooking she doesn't like the hospital food and her Dad has been sneaking out to the takeaway to get her favourite dinner, chicken and chips.

Mrs Hudd is also stocking up on Emily's favourite sweets from the sweetshop rice paper and Parma violets.

It was at a routine scan 20 weeks into the pregnancy that the Hudds discovered Emily had only two chambers in her heart instead of four. She was born on December 8 at St Michael's Hospital weighing 6lb 7oz.

The newborn baby had to undergo an operation at just two days old to have her first shunt fitted, to help her heart pump blood. She stayed in hospital a month because she would not feed. At 18 months old Emily had another operation, because she needed a different shunt as she grew.

But she still could not run and play with other children of her own age because of the heart defect and has to live a more quiet and sedentary life than her lively sisters.