A TODDLER’S amazing recovery from a crippling heart defect has given his family the best Christmas present yet.

Callum Swift, two, had spent months in hospital and was facing the prospect of medication for the rest of his life and a heart transplant.

But following months of medication his parents Tanya and Adrian have been told his heart is almost as good as new, working just as effectively as his contemporaries.

Mrs Swift, 27, of Second Avenue, Rushenden, said: "It was a huge relief. Deciding to put him on the list for a transplant is a horrible decision because they say they only last 10 to 15 years maximum.

"He would have had to have gone through it all again.

"He is also my blood type, Rhesus negative, which would have made it more difficult.

The doctors were very pleased and couldn’t believe his heart is now working almost as it should be."

It was four weeks and five days after Callum was born on March 1, 2005, that he started having breathing difficulties.

He spent one night at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, before being transferred to the Royal Brompton Hospital in London.

There he was diagnosed with a hole in his heart, with the left side very weak and not functioning properly and two hernias on either side of his groin.

Callum spent nearly four months at the hospital, much of the time in intensive care before he was well enough to have an operation to patch the hole in his heart.

Mrs Swift said: "All the way through it we didn’t know if he was going to survive. There were so many times we thought we would lose him."

He was on 11 different types of medication when he left hospital, but is now taking just one to improve the function of his heart and doctors hope to wean him off this eventually.

Callum will continue taking his once a day medicine and will have a check-up in nine months time.

But in the meantime he is enjoying spending time playing with his big sister Naomi, three, and looking forward to starting nursery school in Queenborough.