Ten-year-old Samih Angelo Alame is thriving and doesn’t miss a beat.
“I like tennis, so I have a tennis racket. I do karate, I have my belt,” he says.
However, it was a long road to get to this point.
Twenty-five weeks into her pregnancy, Samih Angelo’s mother, Rebecca-Ann Belmonte, learned her son had a heart condition that would require open heart surgery as a newborn.
“It was clear that he would be he would be needing the Fontan procedure, which is a three-step open heart surgery over the space of four years, more or less,” said Belmonte.
Following his first surgery, the Alame family lived at the Montreal Children’s Hospital for over three months.
“It’s hard to see your child hooked up to all these machines, you know, because after an open heart surgery, he’s just hooked up to all of these machines,” said his mother. “So he was very, very strong and pulled through all of the other challenges that came in the weeks that followed.”
Less than a year later, Samih Angelo needed to have a second surgery and a third when he was just under four years old.
“His oxygen level was very low after the first two surgeries. It was about 80 per cent only,” said Belmonte. “So, therefore, there were a lot of things that Samih couldn’t do, even though he was a three or four-year-old. Even playing at the park was a challenge.”
After a fourth and final surgery, Samih Angelo is now able to do all of the activities he loves. His cardiologist, Dr. Adrian Dancea, says the Children’s Hospital will continue to offer the kind of cardiology care Samih Angelo will need throughout his life.
“Fortunately, with the type of severe malformation that Samih Angelo was born with, we were able to intervene and provide him with a heart that functions well. He’s able to do most things, if not all things that children his age can do,” says Dancea.
However, he still needs regular checkups to ensure his heart is strong.
“I don’t let it stop me and don’t think about it at all,” says the soon-to-be 11-year-old.
His mother says that’s thanks to the team at The Children’s Hospital.
“Going to the hospital is not an ordeal. You know, it’s almost like a home away from home. I mean, Samih is never afraid to be going to the hospital,” she said.
And as he’s about to start Grade Six, Samih Angelo has a lot to look forward to.
“I just want to go on my grad trip like for the whole year,” he jokes.
