TEN-MONTH-OLD Cerys Small, who relies on daily doses of Viagra to help keep her alive, is too young to understand what Christmas is about.

But for parents Gareth and Kerrie, brother Evan, seven, and eight-year-old sister Megan, of Maesglas, Newport, her first festive season will be cause for special celebration.

Cerys needs daily doses of the drug – best known for combating sexual dysfunction in men – in its original role as a treatment for pulmonary hypertension, ahead of further major heart surgery.

Aged three months, she underwent hours of lifesaving surgery at Bristol Children’s Hospital, and will require more operations.

For Mr and Mrs Small, who were asked to consider terminating the pregnancy last year, so poor was the prognosis for their thenunborn daughter, the prospect of sharing her first Christmas is a present in itself.

And they have already handed out one very special present themselves – almost £1,750 raised through a sponsored walk along more than 20 miles of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, and which will buy new heart-testing equipment for the Bristol hospital.

“We couldn’t believe how much we’d raised. It’s going to the cardiac ward. That’s special for us because it is for equipment that will benefit Cerys and others,” said Mrs Small.

The Argus featured Cerys last summer, when she was recently home from hospital and on seven different medicines a day to help combat a complex heart problem.

Without Viagra the pulmonary hypertension, which causes constricted blood vessels to force the heart to work harder to pump blood, turning her skin blue or purple as her body struggled to get her blood circulating.

“She still has bouts, but not as many, so the Viagra’s doing its job,” said Mrs Small.

“She might need an operation next year, before her next big one, but at the moment she’s as well as we can get her.”