Whenever Donna Spittles watches her young boy David struggling with exhaustion and unable to join in playing with his friends she says she has always felt guilty.<\/p>\n
The five-year-old has inherited her medical condition which causes muscle problems and damage to the heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Doctors only discovered Donna’s disorder was genetic after her son needed a heart operation when he was just a few months old \u2013 identical to the one she had needed as a child.<\/p>\n
However Donna, 37, and her husband Aiden, 35, \u00a0felt that their family was not yet complete and longed for a sibling for David.<\/p>\n
Having been told there was a 50:50 chance of their child having the condition, they faced the agonising dilemma… should they give up their dream of expanding their family or\u00a0risk bringing another child with a devastating disease into this world?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Now that her 10-week-old baby Daisy is fighting for her life in hospital, Donna, from Queensland, Australia, said there are times she now regrets taking that chance.<\/p>\n
Said Donna: ‘We have started our own defect’ as she, her son and daughter are the only people in the world with this disorder.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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![\"Daisy](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/07\/17\/42147D8000000578-0-image-a-41_1499446419500.jpg\")
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Daisy \u2013 being fed through a tube \u2013 needs to put on weight before the operation in August<\/p>\n
Just like her mother and brother, Daisy was born with a hole in the heart, known as ventricular septal defect (VSD).<\/p>\n And while this a common defect, the cause of it is not \u2013 their genetic connective tissue disorder.<\/p>\n Mrs Spittles exclusively told MailOnline: ‘Daisy is being fed by a machine pumping formula into her nasal tube and we can’t even pick her up,’ she said. ‘It’s heartbreaking.’<\/p>\n ‘It’s a waiting game now to see if she will put on weight and be strong enough for surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘I had five years of guilt with David for passing on this condition to him and now with Daisy it’s double fold.’\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Daisy’s deterioration<\/span><\/p>\n \n Little Daisy was born a fighter \u2013 she came into the world with the cord wrapped three times around her neck and tore it off, her parents explain.<\/p>\n Now, she’ll soon be facing her biggest battle \u2013 open surgery to repair her tiny heart.<\/p>\n The congenial defect has left her heart pumping so hard she is fighting for every breath.<\/p>\n With her unable to feed and her weight plummeting, doctors are not sure if she will be strong enough for the surgery she urgently needs to stay alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n Daisy’s family are appealing for help towards medical and accommodation costs<\/p>\n Family therapist Mrs Spittles pictured with husband Aidan and their son David<\/p>\n <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Mrs Spittles says they are playing a ‘waiting game’ to see if Daisy is strong enough for surgery<\/p>\n \n ‘Daisy seemed fine when she was born and we thought we’d been lucky,’ explains Mrs Spittles.\u00a0<\/p>\n But three weeks ago she started showing the same worrying symptoms David had and she was rushed to hospital.<\/a><\/p>\n Her feeding tube drips in a few millimetres at a time so her heart doesn’t get overwhelmed.<\/p>\n ‘This means she can’t be moved… her heart is working so hard it’s causing her to vomit a lot,’ said Mrs Spittles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n ‘We really thought she was going to be okay but it turns out her condition is worse than David’s was.’\u00a0<\/p>\n \n \n ‘We started our our defect’\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Mrs Spittles herself had heart surgery at five months old to close a hole in the heart but only had\u00a0genetic testing when David was\u00a0born.<\/p>\n ‘They told us they can’t find the gene that’s responsible for this,’ she said.<\/p>\n ‘So they believe that we have started our own defect.’<\/p>\n And while David pulled through surgery, the condition has left the boy, who is in his first year at school, struggling with fatigue and tasks like holding a pencil.<\/p>\n Mrs Spittles and her children have a disorder so rare it’s not been seen elsewhere<\/p>\n ‘He can’t do things that normal kids do, like play football with his friends.<\/p>\n ‘His muscles are too weak and he needs to rest a lot as he gets so exhausted.<\/p>\n ‘We’ve been told he shouldn’t do anything too strenuous.’<\/p>\n Mrs Spittle says she herself was forced to give up on her dreams of working in the police force because of her disease, and she hopes for a better life for her children.<\/p>\n ‘It’s so difficult because, as it’s so rare, doctors are baffled and can’t say what our future holds.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n David’s condition has left him too exhausted to play football with his school friends<\/p>\n We need financial help\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now the couple are appealing for help with Daisy’s medical costs.<\/p>\n ‘Having been through this to a lesser extent with her older brother so we have a fair idea of the challenges ahead which is why I know we will need help,’ wrote Mr Spittles on his GoFundMe page.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘My wife and I aren’t the sort to beg, but when it’s your children you’ll do whatever it takes.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n To help the family visit\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n A ventricular septal defect (VSD), a hole in the heart, is a common heart defect that’s present at birth (congenital).\u00a0<\/p>\n The hole occurs in the wall that separates the heart’s lower chambers (septum) and allows blood to pass from the left to the right side of the heart.<\/p>\n The oxygen-rich blood then gets pumped back to the lungs instead of out to the body, causing the heart to work harder.<\/p>\n Your doctor may first suspect a heart defect during a regular checkup if he or she hears a murmur while listening to your baby’s heart with a stethoscope.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sometimes VSDs can be detected by ultrasound before the baby is born.\u00a0<\/p>\n A small ventricular septal defect may cause no problems, and many small VSDs close on their own.\u00a0<\/p>\n Larger VSDs need surgical repair early in life to prevent complications.<\/p>\n Source: Mayo Clinic\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever Donna Spittles watches her young boy David struggling with exhaustion and unable to join in playing with his friends she says she has always felt guilty. The five-year-old has inherited her medical condition which causes muscle problems and damage to the heart.\u00a0 Doctors only discovered Donna’s disorder was genetic after her son needed a Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/11\/09\/4236F75F00000578-0-image-m-54_1499762596745.jpg\")
The teenager who thinks she is 120 DIFFERENT PEOPLE:…<\/span>
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Ask the pharmacist: How often should I wash a pill…<\/span>
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![\"Daisy's](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/19\/08\/423F8A6700000578-4675732-Daisy_s_family_are_appealing_for_help_towards_medical_and_accomm-a-3_1500448364158.jpg\")
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![\"Family](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/19\/08\/423F8A7F00000578-4675732-Family_therapist_Mrs_Spittles_pictured_with_husband_Aidan_and_th-a-1_1500448364099.jpg\")
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![\"Mrs](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/19\/08\/423F8A5F00000578-4675732-Mrs_Spittles_says_they_are_playing_a_waiting_game_to_see_if_Dais-a-2_1500448364158.jpg\")
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![\"Mrs](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/19\/08\/423F8A7B00000578-4675732-Mrs_Spittles_and_her_children_have_a_disorder_so_rare_it_s_not_b-a-4_1500448364237.jpg\")
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![\"David's](\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/07\/19\/08\/423F8A7700000578-4675732-David_s_condition_has_left_him_too_exhausted_to_play_football_wi-a-5_1500448364429.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWHAT IS A VENTRICULAR SEPTAL DEFECT?\u00a0<\/h3>\n