A family have spoken of their trauma after their son became extremely unwell with a rare condition in the first few days of his life.
Harry Naan, from Enniskillen, developed meconium aspiration, a condition which leads to blockages in the lungs, in the days following his birth in October of this year.
Harry’s dad Marty and mum Imelda spoke to MyFermanagh about his traumatic first few weeks of life, where he was transported to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, and then to a hospital in Leicester in order to treat Harry.
Describing him as a ‘wee fighter’, Marty said there were long periods where it looked very unlikely that he would pull through.
“He was born and shortly afterwards he was being taken to Belfast, because they couldn’t treat him there and they weren’t really sure what was wrong with him at the time,” Marty said.
“I went down on the Saturday night and he was on the ventilation machine in the ICU, and the doctor took me aside and basically said that Imelda needed to get down as soon as possible, because he wasn’t in a good way.
“He showed some improvement so they tried to wake him up, but then he took another turn for the worse.
“We were then told that if we wanted to get him baptised, or bring any of our family on down to do that. It was an indication to us that he was going to be a goner.
“They were in contact with a specialist team in Leicester, so we were hoping and praying that they would come.
“We got the call and they came and were able to hook him up to this machine which would get him over to Leicester.
“It was awful, we basically had to sign his life away because there was a chance that it could not work or he would develop clots on the brain.
“They flew him over and they were able to confirm it was meconium aspiration, and they were able to work on him.
“He was on an ECMO machine for five days and then back to ICU in Belfast for another five days.”
Describing him as a ‘wee fighter’, Marty and Imelda said Harry coped impeccably well throughout the whole process, and said it was a mark of his great determination despite only being a few days old.
Marty added: “It’s a miracle on its own that he is still here fighting strong. He’s a wee fighter.
"It is definitely a miracle that the wee man is here and I don't think he would be here without the help of everyone from Belfast to Leicester.
“It was the worst thing that could happen to any parent, we weren’t home for three weeks throughout it all and couldn’t even see our other daughter Mia during that time.
Imelda said Harry is now doing really well and it was the best present the family could have got in the lead up to Christmas.
“He’s doing really well now, we didn’t know how long that was going to go on. We were thinking we might be in hospital right up until Christmas time,” Harry’s mum said.
“He bounced back really quickly, much to the surprise of all the consultants as well.
The proud parents paid tribute to all the NHS staff that looked after Harry during his time in hospital.
“I know the NHS gets a bad reputation for being slow, but when it comes to the serious stuff they are on the ball,” Marty said.
Imelda added: “We were so grateful and the fact that we weren’t allowed any family around us, they literally became our family.
“They answered any questions we had, no matter how silly they were.
“From the SWAH to the Royal to Leicester and Craigavon, from day one they made sure were looked after at all stages.
