“Jay-T a young man from East Belfast born with multiple heart defects. Jay-T’s CHD journey with started when he arrived to the RVH by police escort at just 5 days old and critically ill. He was taken straight into intensive care & at just 7 days old this little man went for an aortic coarctation/hypoplasia repair by subclavian flap aortoplasty surgery, lasting just over 8 hours. All went well and from that day Jay-T showed signs of improvement everyday & soon was able to go home. However, just 2 mths later he needed to have second surgery to have pulmonary trunk band put on, this was shorter surgery albeit lasting 4 hours. Jay-T bounced back better than anyone thought he would. Just before Jay-T’s 1st birthday he had a diagnostic catheterisation. Then at just 3 years old he required further open heart surgery & had a procedure called pulmonary trunk band removal (de band), path arterioplasty of pulmonary trunk. This surgery did not go as well as planned & a week later he returned to Theatre for further surgery. At this point they carried out a number of complex procedures including fitting a pace maker system.

Recovery was slow initially but in the end he got there and finally got to go home. This courageous boy never looked back he’s very popular young man and a regular in the outpatient department. He has done amazing in his life so far and we hope he continues to so in the future.”

A special thanks to Danielle for sharing Jay-T’s story with us.

​