Sienna Singleton (two), who lives in Moorends with her dad Peter and mum Kerry, was just six weeks old when it was discovered she had heart valves the wrong way round, an under-developed pumping chamber and a large hole.

As a result the youngster had to undergo lifesaving surgery at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) which was successful.

But this left her with the prospect of years of further open-heart surgery to prolong her life for about 25 to 30 years.

Sienna was recently set to have a further operation because she had turned blue and become out of breath because a rubber band, which was fitted around one of her valves in May 2006 to slow the blood flow down so it did not flood her lungs, had tightened around the valve since she has grown.

Mum Kerry explained: "This was the plan of action until recently when she had a cardiac catheter test done at the LGI.

"And when they came back to explain the results of this test, they told us about some unexpected news and revealed that the under-developed chamber had in fact grown.

"This is somewhat of a miracle and we have always been told it will not grow because it has hardly ever been seen to happen.

"But hey it has and she has proved everyone wrong, although it's still only three-quarters of what it should, it's a lot better than under a quarter of what it used to be."

Because of this the doctors now hope to put the valves the correct way round in the next couple of months.

This would mean an end of operations for Sienna and enable her to have a much better quality of life and live a lot longer than the 30 years.

But they will not know which operation to perform until they look inside and either one could take 15 hours and is high risk.

Kerry added: "But if we leave her and not do anything then she will only be with us for under 12 months.

"So we have no choice but to give her this chance, and fingers crossed she will prove them wrong again and come out fighting."

In a bid raise money for the Children's Heart Surgery Fund which is helping keep Sienna alive, Kerry is hoping to organise fundraising events of any kind.

Anyone with fundraising ideas can contact her on 07841 844427, or make a donation on www.justgiving.com/sienna.