A young girl has earned herself a place in a national dance team less than a year after major surgery for a rare heart condition.

Talisha Cooper, eight, was born with a hole in her heart and was monitored with six-monthly scans until last year when paediatric cardiologists at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital advised surgery.

The South Wootton Junior School pupil joined Alison’s Street Dance Club, in South Lynn, when she was just four years old. And as a member of 10s Enigma team, she was still rehearsing for a charity concert three days before a five-and-a-half hour operation.

Talisha was under the care of Graham Derrick, consultant paediatric cardiologist, who greeted her and her parents, Gareth and Keeley, on arrival. He always encouraged Talisha to enjoy her dancing, a passion which probably contributed to her being fast-tracked through recovery after the operation.

The build up to surgery was far more harrowing for her parents who found themselves on a rollercoaster of emotions as they wandered aimlessly around the nearby British Museum while surgeons repaired their daughter’s defective heart.

Gareth, manager at the T-Mobile shop, Lynn said: “It wasn’t until I read the consent form that I realised they were actually going to stop her heart and let a machine do the work while they repaired the hole. Let’s just say it seemed an eternity before I could actually write my name at the bottom of the page.”

Back in Lynn, Talisha’s older brother Jayden, thirteen, and younger brother, Khyan, four, were being looked after by family, while a contingent of parents from the dance club descended on the family’s Grange estate home and redecorated Talisha’s bedroom in a Hello Kitty theme, complete with matching bed linen and curtains.

“Nothing quite prepared us for the shock of seeing her in cardiac intensive care because part of you thinks ‘She’s had the op and will be fine now’, but in fact she looked much worse,” said Keeley who works in telephone sales at Pandora Books, Lynn. “Her eyes were swollen, her face all puffed up and there were tubes and drains everywhere, but it’s amazing how the doctors and nurses bring them through and give them so much encouragement, because they want to get them home as quickly as possible. We can’t speak highly enough of the care and dedication of everyone at that hospital. It’s an amazing place.”

Another lasting memory was the arrival of Alison McLatchie, dance club proprietor and teacher, who caught a train to London’s King’s Cross accompanied by thirty members of the club, who were all dressed in their dancing gear. The contingent walked from the station to Great Ormond Street Hospital where they found a concourse in the centre of the hospital and proceeded to give the performance of their lives.

“The nurses slowly got Talisha to the ground floor and it was the first time she had smiled since the operation,” said Keeley.

Alison recalls glancing up and seeing lots of other children who had been taken to the balconies overlooking the concourse so they could also see the street dancers’ performance. And the show was given a second airing at King’s Cross station as the group waited for the train home. The performance even made the BBC news.

Ten days after her operation and on her eighth birthday, Talisha stood at the front of Lynn’s Corn Exchange stage, welcoming the audience to the charity show.

Since then she has been in numerous shows and competitions, the highlight of which was dancing on London’s O2 stage where she and her dancing partner Poppy Gill, also eight, earned themselves a place in Team England 2012.

Dance teacher Alison said: “Talisha is an inspiration. She listens, works hard and never complains. She’s one happy little chick.”

Meanwhile Talisha sums up her love of dancing in one word: “Great.”