'The doctors told us her heart was working at just 5%, we broke down at the news'

SITTING in a hospital waiting room, watching the time tick by, Lee and Terri-Anne McDonald anxiously waited for news of their daughter.

They had taken two-year-old Willow to hospital after she fell ill with what they had been told was a routine complaint.

They were stunned when doctors said she had problems with her heart and kidneys, and she had to be sedated to have a catheter fitted.

The procedure was supposed to take 40 minutes but, after hours of pacing the hospital corridors, the couple knew something was wrong.

It was not until medics told them that while on the operating table Willow's heart had stopped three times that they grasped the seriousness of her condition.

"There was me and Lee and four doctors in the room when they told us – but I just felt I was on my own," said Terri-Anne, 34.

"I can't explain what went through my head or what I was feeling – I just wanted to be with my little girl."

Only hours earlier, the couple, from Mackworth, had taken Willow into hospital suffering from what they had been told was a bug.

"I have three other children, I just knew something was wrong," said Terri-Anne, also mother to Blue, 14, Buddy, 12, and Sonny, 10.

"We went to the doctors' and they said she was just fighting a bug. He said to take her home and give her some Calpol," said Lee, also 34.

"But for nights she just would not sleep, so we took her to the Derbyshire Children's Hospital.

"That was 11am. By 7pm she was being rushed to Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre so we knew it was serious.

"It was quite frightening, just to see how urgently they wanted to get her from one hospital to the next.

"They said her heart was working at just 5% – we just broke down when they told us that."

At the Nottingham hospital, doctors said they needed to fit a catheter so they could get fluids into the youngster, but were worried whether her heart could cope.

She was taken down to surgery while her parents faced an anxious wait.

"They took her down to theatre and we went back up to the ward," said Lee, who works in the parts department for Pentagon in the day and as a Derby city centre doorman in the evening.

"We had asked how long it should take and they said about 40 minutes, but not to worry if it was 10 minutes longer. But when it was another three-and-a-half hours we knew something was wrong.

"We were just waiting and waiting. The nurses are told not to say anything. You think the worst but you just have to stop yourself.

"You just keep telling yourself that something must have just been a bit more complicated or taken a bit longer than expected.

"She was meant to come back up to the ward but they took her straight down to the high-dependency unit."

It was then that doctors told the couple their daughter had suffered three cardiac arrests.

"We thought something had gone wrong but we had no idea her heart had stopped three times," said Lee.

"I still get choked up now thinking about it; my wife was hysterical.

"They said there was a top anaesthetist there at the time and that if he hadn't been there, she would not have made it. We are just so thankful to them."

Willow, who was admitted to hospital in January, spent a further six weeks in hospital before she was allowed home. She is now on dialysis for 10 hours a day, seven days a week, and her heart is still only working at 30%.

Terri-Anne has to administer 16 medicines every day – eight in the morning and eight in the evening – to regulate her blood pressure and keep her heart and kidneys working.

"It is very hard for them both," said Lee.

"But if you looked at her running around you would think she was just a normal kid."

And earlier this month, Willow, now three, started nursery.

"If we look back to January and how ill she was, we never ever thought she would be at this stage," said Lee.

"If she did not have tubes coming out of her nose and stomach you would not know something was wrong."

Doctors have told the family that they cannot put Willow on the kidney transplant list until her heart is stronger, which could take more than a year.

"Because of how young she is the doctors are hopeful it will get better, but they just don't know," said Lee.

Later this month, the family will visit doctors for tests on Willow's heart to see if it is getting stronger.

"That would be a huge step forward," said Lee. "We just have to keep positive and hope for the best."