A toddler who has been in hospital for most of his life is preparing to spend his first Christmas at home after finally being discharged.<\/p>\n
Nineteen-month-old Bertie Melly had severe health issues when he was born prematurely at 24 weeks, weighing just 1lb 10oz (0.7kg).<\/p>\n
As well as needing help to breathe, he was found to have a life-threatening illness affecting his intestines. He has undergone five operations – the first at just 10 days old.<\/p>\n
After spending more than 500 days in hospital, Bertie is now at home in Bromley, south-east London, with his parents, Phoebe and Callum Melly, who say he is \u00ab\u00a0making really good progress\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Bertie was born after a 17-minute labour at London’s St Thomas’ Hospital in May 2024.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, he was diagnosed with necrotising enterocolitis, a condition which causes tissue in the intestines to become inflamed and start to die.<\/p>\n
After spending the first six months of his life in neonatal intensive care he was moved to Evelina London Children’s Hospital.<\/p>\n
He is still being fed by tube and receiving nutrients through an intravenous drip.<\/p>\n
However, Mrs Melly said Bertie had been making \u00ab\u00a0really good progress\u00a0\u00bb medically and had been \u00ab\u00a0thriving\u00a0\u00bb since coming home in November.<\/p>\n
She added: \u00ab\u00a0He’s physically developing really well, I think he’s not that far off walking now.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0He’s climbing up the stairs, on and off the sofa, and getting a bit more confident with his standing.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Mr Melly said: \u00ab\u00a0We’ve only been home for four weeks, but it’s almost a distant memory now being at the hospital, which is really nice, just so normal.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Bertie’s parents hope to wean him off his drip and on to solid food within the next year.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0If he can get that line out, then it means we can have a pretty much normal life until he’s eating enough to get the milk pump removed as well,\u00a0\u00bb Mr Melly said.<\/p>\n
He added that his son was the \u00ab\u00a0happiest child you will ever meet\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
He said: \u00ab\u00a0Considering everything he’s been through – if you see his hands, his hands are covered in scars from the amount of cannulas he’s had, he’s got gaping scars all over his his abdomen – and he wakes up beaming, goes to bed, beaming.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0He’s a remarkable little human being.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, the couple have taken Bertie to see Father Christmas, although Mrs Melly said he was \u00ab\u00a0more interested in all the decorations\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The couple said they were \u00ab\u00a0eternally grateful\u00a0\u00bb to the team at the Evelina for everything they did for Bertie.<\/p>\n
Iain Yardley, consultant paediatric and neonatal surgeon at Evelina London, who was involved in Bertie’s care, said: \u00ab\u00a0Bertie has faced many, many challenges in his short life.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0He and his parents have faced these challenges with extraordinary grace and courage.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Seeing him go home is what we all have been working for and we could not be more pleased for him and his family.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A toddler who has been in hospital for most of his life is preparing to spend his first Christmas at home after finally being discharged. Nineteen-month-old Bertie Melly had severe health issues when he was born prematurely at 24 weeks, weighing just 1lb 10oz (0.7kg). As well as needing help to breathe, he was found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}