NURSE BACK IN HER 'SECOND HOME'

'Full circle' moment for former patient at children's hospital

- STEPHANIE COLDERICK

FOR some, having to spend their childhood in hospital is probably enough to put them off hospitals and anything medical for the rest of their lives.

But this isn’t the case for the incredible Cati Williamson, who spent her childhood as a patient at Noah's Ark Children’s Hospital in the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, and has now returned there to work as a nurse.

Cati, who is from Cardiff, was diagnosed with a curvature in her neck at her mum, Dawn's, 20-week scan.

Baby Cati was born seemingly otherwise healthy and at a week old she returned to hospital for an MRI scan to assess the extent of her scoliosis, the name for her curvature in the neck.

It was during this MRI scan that several serious and complex heart defects, the extent of which the team hadn't seen before, became known.

Cati had a large hole in her heart, misaligned arteries, valves that overlapped and straddled each other, and a narrowed aorta. With further tests revealing that Cati’s oxygen levels were dangerously low - there was no time to waste.

At just three weeks old, Cati underwent the first of many major operations. What followed was a childhood marked with hospital stays, open-heart surgeries and countless procedures.