Heart damage doesn't hold Kevin back

ANDREW GORRIE/Dominion Post

ON THE BALL: Matalena Vaeluaga says Kevin, 13, needs monthly penicillin jabs to ward off rheumatic fever, but still plays his favourite sport, rugby.

Related Links

Rheumatic fever rate 'a disgrace'

Relevant offers

Health

A burning issue: When coffins get too big Medical errors cost ACC $7.6m Teens mimic depression to get prescription drugs Hospital heads dismiss DHB merger fears Promoter dismisses bike helmet harm study Plucky mother intent on recovery ACC beneficiary admits he cheated Cafe's stub-out stance a winner Doctor sceptical about boy's alternative cancer care Calls to stop the spread of fast food outlets

When Kevin Vaeluaga listens to his heart through the doctor's stethoscope, he can hear it "swishing".

The whispery sound that muffles its beat is a heart murmur – damage to Kevin's heart valves caused by a bout of acute rheumatic fever when he was eight, that left him in hospital for weeks.

New Zealand's overall rate of rheumatic fever is 14 times the OECD average, and is thought to be linked to poverty and overcrowding. Paediatricians say the prevalence of the disease is shameful and requires urgent Government attention.

Neither Kevin, now 13, nor his parents Matalena and Lafaele Vaeluaga, of Paraparaumu, can clearly remember the sore throat that must have started it all.

The first suggestion that anything was wrong was when Kevin complained of a sore hip that became so bad he had to be carried. Wellington Hospital doctors suspected gout and drained fluid from his hip.

He improved, but a week later, the pain returned, this time in his foot. Worried doctors held off treating him until they could diagnose the underlying cause.

"They started hearing funny sounds on the heart," Mrs Vaeluaga said.

The doctor "put on his rheumatic fever glasses" and spotted the real problem, Mr Vaeluaga said.

Kevin said the month he spent in hospital was scary. "I just didn't know what was going on."

He has moderate heart valve damage and, to ward off future attacks, he now has monthly penicillin injections, which will be a part of his life until he turns 20.

The painful injections were "very traumatic" to begin with, Mrs Vaeluaga said. "One of us had to go in and hold him still."

In other respects, Kevin leads a normal life. He plays his favourite sport, rugby, for the Paraparaumu under-13 side, although Mrs Vaeluaga has to remind his coaches not to let him get out of breath.

The lack of knowledge about what turns some throat infections into rheumatic fever and not others was hard to deal with, Mrs Vaeluaga said.

"I still ask, what did we do wrong? The environment, the house or what? They can't explain it – it just so happens this child has it."

- © Fairfax NZ News