Brave baby Ella in new fight for life

A brave baby who recently had both kidneys removed was left fighting for life after developing a serious chest infection.

Twenty-month-old Ella Chadwick underwent the radical surgery in April as her only hope of survival against the rare Congenital Nephrotic Syndrome, a potentially fatal disorder that affects one in 10,000 people.

Little Ella, of Platting Lane, Balderstone, was thriving following her gruelling four-and-a-half hour operation at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital in Pendlebury. But the youngster caught a bad cold which developed into a chest infection.

She spent more than a week in intensive care at Pendlebury and she was treated with a ventilator to help her breathe.

Ella is now under observation on the renal ward for patients with kidney disorders.

Her father Martin said: “She is breathing for herself now but she was very weak. She is still not 100 per cent but hopefully she will be able to come home this week.”

Ella is now relying on regular dialysis after having her kidneys removed. She is too small to go on the waiting list for a transplant but Martin and Ella’s mother Karen are hoping that they will be eligible to donate one of their kidneys when she is big enough.

Sufferers of CNS cannot process proteins properly, passing them as urine, causing the organs to deteriorate and eventually fail.

Martin, a service technician for Smith Knight Fay Volkswagen in Bury, was touched to return to work after Ella’s latest health scare to discover that his colleagues had raised £300 for the renal ward at Pendlebury.

They have raised the money by slashing £2 from the price of every MOT or service and donating it to the ward.

© M.E.N media 2009