BIOGRAPHY

Zach was born in 2008, and was almost immediately diagnosed with Down syndrome (pending tests).

 He spent the first 2 and a half weeks of his life in the special care nursery with some oxygen and feeding problems.  He was flown to the Mater Childrens hospital in Brisbane, where we discovered he had several VSD's (ventricular septal defects - or holes in his heart) and an ASD (atrial septum defect), which required repair.

 Until then, we had been trying to wean him from a naso-gastric tube (which he had from birth) to bottle feeds, but it was deemed to be too much stress on his little heart, so he was fed solely through the naso-gastric tube.

He was admitted into hospital 4 or 5 times throughout the year with viral infections - he needed extra oxygen for the duration of the illness.

After several set-backs to the surgery date (including the measles!), he had the ASD/VSD repaired at 6 months of age.  Surgery went well.  He spent 3 days in intensive care, and another 3 in the cardiac ward. 

After the surgery, we spent the next almost 18 months battling to wean Zach from his NG tube, and finally, after a procedure to unblock a tear duct at 22 months old, something just seemed to click and he started to drink whole feeds without the use of an NG tube.

Now we are battling to progress in the solid food side of things.  At 2 yrs old, he sits at about a 9 month olds feeding level, and recently, we have just discovered another hole in his heart, which we are hoping will close over naturally without surgery.  

But all in all, we are very lucky to have such a happy and funny little boy!