Ex-England ace Jack Wilshere today revealed he lost almost a stone due to stress in the month leading up to his daughter's life-saving surgery for the hole in her heart.
The former Arsenal midfielder, who played 34 times for his country, said he and his wife Andriani Michael cried for 45 minutes after their five-year-old daughter was given an anaesthetic before the operation.
He told The Sun: 'I had to drag my wife out of the anaesthetic room and we went to a room upstairs and we were just crying, both of us, for about 45 minutes'.
Jack admitted it was 'five hours of hell' waiting for the phone to ring and admitted he thought '100 per cent' Siena would die during surgery.
The ex-footballer spoke candidly to the BBC about his daughter's congenital heart defect.
Wilshere and Andriani welcomed daughter Siena, now six, just a year after their wedding in June 2017 - but noticed that she was always coughing shortly after her first birthday.
During a family holiday in Cyprus, a doctor detected a heart murmur and urged the family to take Siena to see a cardiologist - where they discovered that Siena had a hole in her heart.
The couple have now become ambassadors of the British Heart Foundation.
Recalling the terrifying phone call he had with his wife, Wilshere told the BBC: 'I was preparing to travel with the team, my team, for a game like we normally do any my phone rang.'
Mother Andriani said: 'I remember falling to the floor crying, I just couldn't believe the news, it was shocking.
Siena underwent a five-hour operation in February after being diagnosed with venosus atrial septal defect, or a hole in the heart, one month prior.
Jack recalled: 'Going into ICU and seeing your daughter there sleeping, with all these wires.'
When asked if he thought his daughter would die during the surgery, he said: '100 percent'.
Andriani added: 'I just remember hearing her cry and I just burst into tears because I knew she was going to be okay, it was just the recovery'.
Around 13 babies in the are born each day with a congenital heart defect in the UK and sixty years ago the vast majority would not survive to see their first birthday.
Thanks to research, more than eight out of 10 babies born with a heart defect will live to see adulthood.
Jack told the BBC: 'We're really proud of what she's been through and her journey.
'I was a footballer and I went through a lot of surgeries and I know how hard it is to recover and these are nothing compared to what she went through, as a five-year-old and just to bounce back the way she did - a lot of courage. I'm so proud of her'.
Wilshere is now trying to raise awareness of the condition and have become official ambassadors of the British Heart Foundation.
'There are so many warriors out there' Jack added, 'and hopefully we can give parents support, we can get more research into it and really try and make a difference to the parents lives but also the children's'.