Clinton wants to go to school
When Clinton Botha (7) was born on October 23, 2006, he was diagnosed with Dextrocardia, which means the heart flips and forms on the right side of the sufferer.
It can be detected during pregnancy, but according to Clinton’s mother Joan Botha, nothing was detected and Clinton was carried to 36 weeks.
“It was a normal birth, but immediately after he was born the doctors noted his body was blue and he was given oxygen.
“But even after the oxygen treatment his body stayed blue and he did not get better,” she says.
Joan adds the doctors noticed his neck was shorter than normal and his right shoulder was higher than the left, pulling towards his head.
“He was in neonatal ICU for three weeks,” says Joan.
The hospital in question referred him to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg to be seen by a cardiologist for proper treatment, as they could not provide the proper treatment that he needed.
According to Joan, when they arrived at the hospital, Dr DP Ngewizi took him under her wing and had tests done to write a proper report with proper diagnosis.
“He was sent for all kinds of tests and it was noted that his heart has moved to the right side of his body instead of the left as his organs were not positioned correctly during pregancy,” she says.
This means that the artery between his heart and his lung has narrowed and due to that, his heart beats twice as fast to get the correct amount of oxygen.
Joan says according to the doctors a normal person’s breathing oxygen percentage is between 90 and 95%, but Clinton’s is only 81%.
Due to the lower-than-normal amount of oxygen in the blood he has club fingers, which is caused by his congenital heart disease.
Clubbing is a thickening of the flesh under the toenails and fingernails. The nail curves downward, similar to the shape of the round part of an upside-down spoon.
“I am shy and scared that people will laugh at me, but I do know that I am special,” says Clinton, a little boy who also has dreams of being able to play around like a normal child pretending he is Batman or Superman, just like his favourite super heroes.
But his biggest dream is to be able to go to a normal school and have friends.
Note:
Dextrocardia is an abnormal congenital positioning of the heart in which, instead of the heart forming in the fetus on the left side, it flips over and forms on the right. There are several types of this condition, also called looping defects.
It is frequently diagnosed in a routine prenatal sonogram, although not every radiologist will catch it, particularly if there are no cardiac structural abnormalities.
Mirror image dextrocardia is a very rare condition, present in about one in 130 000 people.
In this looping defect, not only does the heart flip the wrong way and develop on the wrong side of the chest, but also all the other organs in the middle of the body are reversed.
In essence, an X-ray of someone with this problem looks like a mirror image of the normal heart and organ placement.
This abnormality was first noted in the 1920s, when X-rays revealed this abnormal placement. Fortunately, this type of looping defect does not involve structural abnormalities of the heart or other organs.
In some cases, cilia – the tiny hair-like structures – in the nose and lungs move in the opposite direction, causing a greater susceptibility to colds or illness.
Aside from this susceptibility, a person with this condition does not require any special treatment or surgeries.
