15813/03GRATEFUL Heather Brothers is planning a fundraising belly dance to help parents whose children have heart conditions.

Mrs Brother's four-year-old son, Francis, has undergone four operations in his short life to treat a heart defect he was born with.

Mrs Brothers, a belly dancer and teacher in Calne, has organised a Mid-East party with other belly dancers to raise money to buy books from a heart charity for the cardiac ward at Bristol Children's Hospital.

Sixteen hours after he was born at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, Francis was whisked off to Bristol Children's Hospital after a paediatrician detected something was wrong with him during a routine check-up.

Mrs Brother said: "The paediatrician noticed Francis was going a funny colour and he was cold. They did a lot of tests at Bath but at 1am he was taken in an ambulance to Bristol.

"They thought something was wrong with his heart and they sent him to Bristol to do proper checks on him.

"When they told me Francis was ill I didn't really know what to think especially as they couldn't tell me what was happening to him. I did a lot of crying. Until we were told what was wrong with him we had no idea whether he would survive"

Mrs Brothers and her 37-year-old husband, Tony, drove to Bristol and she stayed at the hospital with her son.

Francis was diagnosed with pulmonary atresia, which meant his pulmonary artery the artery taking blood to the lungs was completely closed.

When he was 11 days old he underwent a three hour operation where a tube was inserted to keep open a duct at the top of his heart to allow blood to circulate.

But a few days later Francis developed an infection and he was operated on to clean out his chest.

Francis stayed in hospital for a total of six weeks.

He remained on medication for five months and was given aspirin every day until he had another operation when he was ten months old.

This operation involved taking out the tube from the duct and putting in a donor artery valve. In addition Francis had a small hole in the wall between the two sides of his heart and this was repaired at the same time.

"The operation took seven hours and everything went well. Francis was in intensive care for two days and we went home about ten days later," said Mrs Brothers.

But again Francis suffered an infection and he was rushed back to Bristol for another operation.

Francis recovered and he has suffered no ill effects of the major surgery he has undergone.

He goes for check-ups and it has been found that the donor valve, which came from an adult, is starting to leak and it is possible that in the future he will need to have another operation to replace the valve.

While Francis was in hospital Mrs Brothers was grateful to the charity Heartline, which produced a book covering all aspects of having a child with a heart condition. Mrs Brothers wants to use the profits she makes from her belly dance party to buy several Heartline books for the cardiac ward at Bristol.

She said: "When I was there there was only one book on the ward so I thought it would be good to buy several books for parents to read.

"It's not easy to take in all the information you are told and the doctors and nurses can't spend all their time with you."

The Mid-East party is on July 9 from 5pm at the Bell by the Green pub, Estcourt Street, Devizes. Tickets are £6. For further information call Mrs Brothers on (01249) 822630.