Patrick Bennett is a fighter.
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He underwent a 15-hour surgery to repair his back-to-front heart, had his chest open for five days and had to fight off an opiate withdrawal which developed after he was taken off his medication.
All this at just one year old. Patrick and his family went down to Sydney last month for what ended up being a longer than anticipated operation.
That was only part of the fight as mum Loren explained.
"It was day six after surgery that he started to wake up," she said.
"That's when he had the withdrawals, so terrible tremors and vomiting and then when he was actually opening his eyes he was just staring into nothing.
"Even though they took him off the breathing machine, he couldn't move and didn't know who we were and it was quite horrific."
A few more days went by with no real improvement.
That's when doctors gave the Bennett family the news they feared all along.
"They said we would have to look at the possibility of brain damage," Loren said.
"We had the kids come down and we got to take him out into the garden and he was still very vacant for the first hour. Then all of a sudden something just clicked.
"I don't know if it was hearing the kids' voices or being outside again, but he started to actually respond to people instead of looking straight through them.
It's nice to see him smile again.
- Loren Bennett
"We thought 'are we going to lose him forever' because it was day after day after day that he wasn't responding at all. Thank goodness there wasn't brain damage."
They stayed in hospital for another week before doctors told them the best place Patrick could be was at home.
He still has to do speech therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy because he doesn't have full function of his arms and legs yet, but all of those things are able to be done in Orange.
"We hit some lows, but we got there," Loren said.
"It's nice to see him smile again. I knew the kids all had this beautiful bond, but it just reinforced that. It was pretty special."
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Riley Krause
I am a senior journalist for the Central Western Daily. A jack of all trades, I cover everything from sport, to human interest stories and crime. Drop me an email at riley.krause@austcommunitymedia.com.au
I am a senior journalist for the Central Western Daily. A jack of all trades, I cover everything from sport, to human interest stories and crime. Drop me an email at riley.krause@austcommunitymedia.com.au
