First-time mum Danielle Trumper stared back at the doctor, as he revealed her 10-month-old boy Quinn was not going home.
Her eyes darted between the doctor and Quinn, who was happily crawling around on the floor, as she tried to take in the shock diagnosis of her son’s severe cardiac condition.
Quinn’s heart was in overdrive.
Catch the best deals and products hand-picked by our team at Best Picks
For his brief 10 months of life, his heart had been working so hard it had begun to calcify and harden.
“I left the house for a 45-minute appointment,” the Perth mum tells 7Life of the doctor’s visit, during which she learnt her baby needed open heart surgery.
“We were told we weren’t going home and we needed to go to hospital straight away.”
Seven days later, Quinn was on the operating table.
His parents Danielle and Simon say they wouldn’t wish on anyone the ordeal they have now been through.
After a textbook pregnancy and birth, Quinn was welcomed into the world a healthy little boy.
He started to grow into a cheeky little man, hitting milestone after milestone.
But at nine months old, Quinn began vomiting uncontrollably so Danielle phoned the health hotline and was advised to take him to hospital Emergency.
There, doctors discovered an abnormality with his heart.
“Basically his heart was enlarged and they booked us in to see a cardiologist in a few months,” Danielle says, revealing they were discharged a short time later.
“We were told that if Quinn had blue hands, feet or lips to come back.”
Appeased by the doctor’s calm demeanour, Danielle and Simon left hospital armed with a plan and were confident their little boy was going to be okay.
As Christmas 2022 hit, the family was deep in holiday celebrations, with the parents keeping a watchful eye on Quinn’s condition.
The baby continued to be his happy, cheeky self, and Danielle struggled to believe he could possibly have a serious heart condition.
But one night, with Simon away from home on a fly-in fly-out shift “swing”, the mum was bathing Quinn.
As she pulled her little boy out of the warm bathwater, she was shocked to notice his feet were turning blue.
“It was summer and the bath was warm — there was no way was he cold,” Danielle says.
She phoned her mum and again raced her boy to Emergency, where doctors began running tests.
But as quickly as his blue-hued feet appeared, they disappeared — and specialists were stumped, with tests revealing no change in Quinn’s heart function.
With his cardiologist appointment still months away, the hospital decided to bring forward the specialist’s visit so they could get to the bottom of Quinn’s condition.
“We were told to keep living life as normal,” Danielle says.
A few weeks later, Danielle and a close friend took Quinn to what was meant to be a 45-minute appointment, hopeful for answers.
But the time bumped out as Quinn had test after test, before the cardiologist finally sat them down.
“He looked at me and said: ‘Where is Dad today, can we get him on the phone?’,” Danielle says.
Her heart sank.
With Simon on speaker, she sat across from the cardiologist as he relayed the news that Quinn had congenital aortic valve stenosis.
Since birth, not enough blood had been pumping to his heart through his aortic valve, causing the tiny organ to work too hard, resulting in an enlarged heart.
With the organ in overdrive, it was starting to calcify, and, if left untreated, it would be fatal.
Quinn needed open heart surgery.
Simon frantically began searching for flights to race to his son’s side, as Danielle started planning for a potentially lengthy hospital stay.
At 9pm, Simon rushed through the hospital doors.
“Quinn was just asleep in his cot,” Danielle says of the surreal situation, revealing Quinn had been displaying no symptoms of needing emergency heart surgery.
The next few days raced by as surgeons began planning for the lengthy operation and, seven days later, Quinn was wheeled into theatre.
The moment the parents waved goodbye to their baby boy, they broke down in tears.
“It is a day I wouldn’t wish on anybody,” Danielle says, “Saying goodbye and not knowing when I would see him again.”
As surgeons performed the delicate surgery to repair the 10-month-old’s faulty aorta, the parents waited anxiously, a theatre nurse providing updates in phone calls every few hours.
“I made Simon answer the calls,” Danielle confesses.
“When the phone rang, it was that feeling of not knowing if it was good news or bad news.”
Thankfully, each call heralded good news and, just after dinner time, they learnt the surgery was a success.
However, in coming months, Quinn would need another heart surgery, to complete the repair on his valve.
For now, the parents took the win.
Racing to the ICU, Danielle and Simon made their way to their baby’s bedside — and the sight that greeted them will never be erased from the mum’s mind.
“Seeing your baby attached to wires and breathing devices with a huge scar down his chest, still in his nappy…” the mum trails off.
“So vulnerable.”
Remarkably, after just three days in ICU, Quinn moved into a ward.
As he continued to recover, he was finally able to slip on his Supertee — a specially designed medical shirt giving sick children the dignity of wearing clothes in hospital but allowing access for necessary medical tubes and wires.
After three weeks, Quinn was discharged.
And as Danielle and Simon waved goodbye to the hospital, despite knowing they would be back soon, they had some happy news — they were expecting again.
Quinn’s second cardiac surgery, in August 2023, was also successful; just six days later, he was running out of the hospital waving goodbye to the nurses as he left.
His cardiologist continues to carefully monitor how Quinn’s heart valve changes as he grows, and suspects he may need further surgery down the track.
But for now, he is enjoying playing big brother to his sister Millie.
“He runs the show, that’s for sure,” Danielle laughs.
“He is an adventurous, cheeky inquisitive little toddler.”
Danielle and Simon are blown away by the high quality care Quinn has received along the way — and are so proud of how far their little man has come.
Danielle and Quinn are supporting Supertee’s new fundraiser, Tea4Tees, to help the children’s charity reach its goal of donating 16,000 Supertee kits to sick children in hospitals across Australia this year.