Tiernan Elder is five, lives in Tai Po with his parents and enjoys kicking around with his brother, Ronan, two. They look out for one another.
The timing of Tiernan's birth was fortunate; 15 to 20 years ago, it's unlikely the technology would have existed to fix his heart.
He has a problem with his pulmonary artery - the vessel connecting his heart to his lungs - and has spent a good part of his life in and out of the operating theatre. Then, in March this year, he received a shunt - a replacement tube to fix the artery - in open-heart surgery.
Whereas he could previously function at maybe 70 per cent, now he's capable of doing anything he likes - and he's an energetic boy.
'We adopted him at nine months from Mother's Choice,' said his Irish father, Philip, who runs an educational book business. 'We just saw this little black blob on a piece of faxed paper that came from the agency and that was him. We knew at the time that he had problems with his heart. We took him home and he had his first operation a month later.'
This year's operation was facilitated by the Children's Heart Foundation, one of this year's beneficiaries of Operation Santa Claus. Set up 10 years ago, the foundation helps families who go through the trauma and expense of life-saving operations for their children.
'He's now full of energy,' said Mr Elder of Tiernan. 'He eats well. We still have regular assessments and maybe in 10 years or so he may have another shunt because he will have grown. But for the next whatever years, he's fine.'
