Family of toddler born with five holes in her heart on a mission to save more children
The family of a little girl born with five holes in her heart are hoping to raise awareness of the potentially fatal condition so that other parents know what to look out for.
Honey Brown from Barnstaple is 17 months old and is now as bubbly and on the go as any toddler - but health problems meant she had a very difficult start in life.
Grace Brown noticed that something wasn't right with her third child when she was just one month old.
Honey was
barely putting on weight
sleeping almost all the time
had cold hands and feet
her fingernails were white
Her parents rushed her to a doctor.
Honey didn't have just one hole in her heart - she had five.
An open heart operation to patch and sew the holes took nine hours.
It's just over a year since that operation, and Honey is putting on weight and improving. But Grace and her husband Richard know how close they came to losing her.
Honey's life was saved by the emergency heart operation - and they want to make sure others are just as lucky.
Congenital Heart Defects: a silent killer
The condition is the number one killer in children - more than all childhood cancers combined. However, early diagnosis can improve prognosis dramatically.
Knowing first-hand the importance of early diagnosis, the Brown family now want to give back.
The Browns are now stepping up an already impressive fundraising effort. As well as raising money for charities such as Tiny Tickers, they also want to pay for a defibrillator to be placed in Barnstaple's Rock Park and are staging a 5K fun run and community day.
The Browns want Honey's story to help other parents spot the signs and save their child's life.