The parents of Ella Wiseman, a toddler who underwent a heart transplant, are considering legal action one year after the life-saving surgery.

Amy Ash and TJ Wiseman held a ’happy heart birthday party’ for the two-year-old at their home in Douglas.

Ella now goes to nursery two days a week but has to take medicine twice a day and have monthly check-ups.

The couple believe that had she been diagnosed earlier, her own heart might have been saved.

Amy, who is in discussion with lawyers about taking legal action, said: ’I do not want it to happen to anyone else.

’If it had been diagnosed early it could have been fixed.’

Ella was 10 months old when they first found out something was wrong with her.

’We took her to the doctor’s and they sent us home with antibiotics. After a week on them she took a bad turn and we had to ring an ambulance for her,’ said Amy. ’She was then taken to the children’s ward and sent for an x-ray.

’We got told it was pneumonia. She then took a bad turn in hospital and was taken for another x-ray and we were then told it was heart failure and she got rushed to Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool the next day and they diagnosed her with dilated cardiomyopathy.

’We then spent eight months going back and forth to Alder Hey as she just kept getting worse so in the end they sent us to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle for a heart transplant assessment.

’We were only in this hospital for about two days before they told us Ella has not got dilated cardiomyopathy, she actually had a rare condition called abnormal coronary artery and would have had it from birth, the left side of her heart has been starved of oxygen since she was born but they’d caught it too late.

’They have done a few operations on Ella to fix her heart - one operation they’ve never done before - they gave her heart a chance to recover but nothing changed.’

Ella, then aged 22 months, was rushed into the operating theatre on October 30 last year, after a five-month wait.

She had been on life support at Freeman’s hospital in Newcastle when a suitable heart became available.

At the time Amy said: ’We were so shocked when we got told they had a heart for Ella, one minute I was crying the next I was smiling and happy.

’Part of me didn’t want her to go yet just because of how well she looked, but of course I knew she needed it so we could go home and get back to normality.’

Today Ella is ’amazing’ said Amy.

She goes to nursery at Little Darlings twice a week and is like any other two-year-old.

But there are some notable exceptions.

’We have to be careful of other kids when they’ve got illnesses,’ said Amy. ’Chicken pox and vomiting and diarrhoea could be really bad.’

Ella takes daily immuno suppressant drugs and antibiotics.

She will always have to take drugs and be careful about exposure to disease.

’I’m not sure if she remembers anything about her time in hospital, she cries in her sleep. They are night terrors,’ Amy said. ’She asks what are the scars on her belly and neck. I say they are beauty scars.’

Health: mother seeks legal advice after late diagnosis led to transplant