Beth's ode to her hero (From This is Hampshire)

Beth's ode to her hero

8:00am Saturday 1st August 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

A BRAVE 11-year-old north Hampshire schoolgirl, who has had three major heart operations, has written a poem about her hero – her surgeon.

Beth Jordan first underwent open-heart surgery in 1998, when she was just 11 weeks old, at Southampton General Hospital, and had an artificial mitral valve fitted.

At the time, Beth was the youngest patient at the Hampshire hospital to have this 12-hour operation. She has since had another operation to replace the artificial valve, in 2001, and a further operation in 2007, aged eight, when her aortic stenosis was repaired.

All three procedures were carried out by Marcus Haw, a consultant cardiac surgeon at the Wessex Cardiac Centre at Southampton hospital.

So when Beth, from Little London, was given a school assignment – at Daneshill School, Stratfield Turgis – to write a poem, she chose to write about her surgeon.

Her poem, entitled No One Famous, was chosen as a finalist from 35,000 entries from all over the UK and overseas in the 19th Young Writers’ Poetry competition, and will be published in a book entitled Poetry Explorers Hampshire at the end of this month.

The young writer, who has just finished Year Six, said: “I was doing my homework and we had to think of a poem which could be about anything, and this poem came into my mind, so I worked on it from there.”

She added that Mr Haw liked the poem when he read it.

Beth’s mother, Christine Jordan, said: “She doesn’t fail to surprise me with what goes through her mind – she’s very deep-thinking. It must be the same for other children who are very ill. They go a bit deeper and are more sensitive.”

Beth has six-monthly screening sessions to monitor her progress and her medication includes Warfarin, a blood-thinning drug that she will take for life but which causes her severe problems. On three occasions, she has needed blood transfusions from blood loss due to nosebleeds.

Beth, who has a 14-year-old sister Eloise, will also need another operation when she is a teenager to upgrade the artificial valve to take her into adulthood.

The Jordan family is supporting Mr Haw and Beth’s cardiologist Dr Tony Salmon, who recently cycled 107 miles to raise money for a 23-bed Young Adults Cardiac Unit at the South-ampton hospital for young patients to have their own space.

Mrs Jordan said: “Mr Haw does hours and hours of operations and for the two of them to find time to do this cycle challenge is incredible. He is so dedicated to the children and teenagers he looks after.”

The project – entitled Wessex Heartbeat Charity appeal – is aiming to raise £1.2million and will benefit young people in the Basingstoke area.

Anyone who wants to find out more, or who would like to make a donation, should visit justgiving.com/tonyandmarcus or justgiving. com/wessexheartbeat.