BRAVEHEART: BABY GIRL SURVIVES HEART SWELLING TO SIZE OF ORANGE
A baby girl has become the youngest British patient to receive a life-saving cardiac operation after her heart swelled to twice its normal size within days of her birth. Little Phoebe Whittle was just four weeks old when medics had to battle to save her life from a congenital defect which gave her tiny heart only a third of the oxygen it needed to work. Mum Charlotte 27, and husband Carl, 32, looked on in horror as she failed to breathe normally and turned blue within days of being born. Phoebe had been born with ALCAPA, Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery, that meant the artery to her heart muscle was connected incorrectly, starving it of oxygen.As a result, Phoebe's heart ballooned to twice its size - swelling from the size of a walnut to the size of an apple. But incredibly, the tiny tot - dubbed 'Braveheart' by her proud parents, made a stunning recovery following groundbreaking surgery at Alder Hey Children's Hospital
Other great stories
SWIMMING WITH WHALE SHARKS
A diver looks like a minnow as she swims alongside a gigantic whale shark, the largest species of fish on the planet .
MAKING A SPLASH - GORILLA GOES APE IN WATER
While often referred to as the kings of the jungle, gorillas - for all their might - are notorious hydrophobes .
INCREDIBLE PHOTOREALISTIC DRAWINGS CREATED WITH A BALLPOINT PEN
FROM a HOLLYWOOD actress to the face of an innocent child, these are incredible drawings with an unlikely twist .
ABANDONED DAIRY FARM'S EERIE PAST
HEARTWARMING belongings lie abandoned in this eerie former dairy farm which has been left to crumble away for decades .
ARTIST TURNS DAUGHTER'S DOODLES INTO WORKS OF ART
THIS UNUSUAL collaboration between a mother and her two-year-old daughter makes for some stunning works of art .
MY 4YO BEAUTY PAGEANT DAUGHTER WEARS FAKE TAN AND LIPSTICK - AND STRANGERS THINK I'M TARTING HER UP
Growing up, Jasmine Price, now four, loved watching her older sister, Mia Price, now 10, compete in beauty pageants .
SHARK WHISPERER BALANCES SHARK IN HIS HAND
Pic By Graham Gibson/ HotSpot Media - SHARK HYPNOTIST BALANCES SHARK IN PALM OF HIS HAND- In Pic - Diver Tom and Caribbean reef sharks in the Bahamas- A SHARK hypnotist balances these predators in the palm of his hand by sending them to sleep with a gentle nose rub .
MILEY MASH-UP
HOTSPOT MEDIA - MILEY MASH-UP: MILEY CYRUS’ naked wrecking ball vid has been lampooned in this side-spitting photo-mashup .
SHEEPDOG GIVES BIRTH TO BUMPER LITTER OF 14 PUPS
One sheepdog is taking a well-deserved rest after giving birth to a whole WHEELBARROW-FUL of puppies .
EYE-CATCHING TRIBAL HAIRSTYLES
BRAIDED, sculpted and beaded, these are the eye-catching hairstyles worn by the tribal women of Angola .
WOMAN TOO SCARED TO LEAVE HOUSE AFTER HORROR HAIR DYE REACTION
A woman who suffered from an allergic reaction to hair dye that made her face swell to twice its size has been left too scared to leave the house .