'I rejected palliative care because of my faith in God': Miracle girl Rhiana on road to recovery

Rhiana Thompson was born with multiple defects of the heart and has undergone more than 14 operations including three open heart surgeries.

In 2014 her condition became critical when fluid built up on her chest and stomach.

But after being told by doctors there was nothing more they could do she made a miraculous recovery after the problem was resolved unexpectedly.

Within three months the 19-year-old was back at St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall, completing her A-levels.

She has since gone on to raise £1,523 for the British Heart Foundation through a Just Giving fundraising page and a tea party held at Bilston Baptist Church earlier this month.

Rhiana – who lives in Bilston with her mother, father and three younger siblings – was born with defects including transposition of the great arteries and ventricular septal defect.

At just three days old she had an emergency open-heart surgery at Birmingham Children's Hospital, followed by two more at 14 months and seven years.

Failures in the last of these resulted in Rhiana developing a rare condition called protein-losing enteropathy which causes an abnormally low level of protein in the blood.

It came to a head in 2014 when she became severely ill with fluid building on her chest and stomach.

Rhiana, said: "Doctors felt I needed a heart transplant, however this was not to be as they said I was too ill for the transplant and I wasn't happy with the idea of a heart transplant anyway.

"So I spent many weeks going between ICU and Coronary Care at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and was expected to need palliative care.

"I rejected palliative care because of my faith in God which gave me confidence and made me know I would be fine."

The fluid on Rhiana's chest meant she needed five separate drains and her lungs began to collapse twice.

But suddenly the problem stopped. The family were told by a doctor that when inserted the final drain had inadvertently put a hole in a muscle, preventing further fluid from building up on her chest.

Rhiana still has to drain between 500ml and a litre of fluid from her stomach every day.

She is now enrolled on a teaching assistant course at the City of Wolverhampton College with the aim of eventually becoming a primary school teacher.

Her mother, Sharron, said: "The doctors said there was nothing more they can do. She straight away rejected palliative care because she said she did not feel sick.

"Even when her brothers and sisters came to see her she was telling them to calm down, she was not going to die.

"Her faith was everything to her, absolutely everything. The faith in our family, our extended family and the church family all helped her through."