I have done things for charity before, assault courses, bungee jumps, I have organised charity days at work, cake sales, I have even packed bags in supermarkets.  I have also trained for things before, runs usually.  I have found training for the Great North Swim (GNS) in June to be the biggest challenge yet.  And the most frightening.  Apart from perhaps the bungee jump.  

Training for the GNS whilst caring for a 4 year old & a now 10 month old baby has not been the best if I am honest.  I really don’t know what part of me thought this was going to be a good idea.  There have been evenings after a long day, after a night with no sleep, that the last thing I have wanted to do is go swimming.  I want to go to bed.  I don’t want to spend 45 minutes swimming up & down my local pool.  More than once I have cried about it.  Two things keep me motivated. 

There are other things I worry about.  Swimming in a wetsuit.  Actually just getting a wetsuit on is a concern all of its own. Normal race things, the fear of being last etc, but knowing I can do something to help First Touch keeps me going.  

Watching my son, unable to breath on his own, covered in wires & hooked up to machines that bleeped & alarmed, what felt continuously, was the hardest thing I have been through to date.  He couldn’t breathe when he was born.  The midwife showed him to me & put him against my cheek for a kiss & he was taken away.  An x-ray showed that he was born with a condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH).  He had no diaphragm, all his organs had moved into his lung cavity & his lungs were squashed & ill formed.  He was taken by ambulance to St George’s where they could give him the care he needed.   

When I joined him there the next day I found the NICU overwhelming.  The nurse we had on that first day, Laura, was just wonderful.  She was so patient, kind and thoughtful.  She answered all our questions, she handled Albert with enormous care & was lovely to my family who were also in shock.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.  It was very reassuring to know he was getting one to one care.  Almost without exception the nurses who cared for Albert were like this.  The Doctors were also wonderful.  They travel in groups & at first it was a bit unnerving, but they would answer any question & seemingly didn’t mind when I continuously cried at them.  Those first few days were terrifying.  The doctors & the nurses would tell me he was doing well, but he didn’t look well to me.  He was on medication that kept him paralysed to stop him from pulling out the many wires & tubes he had coming out of him.  He was not the busy little baby we were expecting. On day 4 they operated.  They moved his organs back into place & put a patch in where his diaphragm should be.  It felt like forever waiting but the surgeon came out & told us it had gone well.  We were told that recovery could be long & not to expect him home any time soon. 

After the operation they started to reduce the medication that was keeping him paralysed.  I remember the Saturday after the operation was a bad day.  His breathing was awful & they had had to increase the help he was getting.  We were warned it could get worse before it got better & this felt like the start of it.  We just sat watching him all day.  Crying mostly.  We decided to go home & at that moment he moved his toes.  Duncan & I both jumped up “Did you see that??”.  We couldn’t go home now.  He moved!  Then about an hour later, he opened his eyes.  I cried so much. This felt like progress.  From then on there was more finger & toe moving & eyes opening.  It was wonderful.  The worst thing, which broke me every single time, was when he cried.  You could see he was crying, his face would crumple up, his mouth would open, but there was no sound because of the tube down his throat.  It was utterly heart breaking.  

On day 9 I got my first cuddle.  To pick him up & hold him was amazing.  I can’t explain how this cuddle lifted my mood.  It did something for him too as from that day he went from strength to strength & yes I am taking some credit for that.  The months we were expecting him to be in hospital for then turned to weeks.  By the start of week 3 they told us he was ready to go back to our local hospital.  I was in shock again!  I liked it at St Georges.  I knew the nurses & the doctors, we had a routine!  However he was no longer in an incubator, he was barely having any help breathing.  He was ready.  We ended up leaving that afternoon & by the beginning of the following week he was home.  It was the most hideous time ever, but without the amazing surgeon, doctors & nurses at St George’s & the quick diagnosis at St Helier, Albert would not be here.  We owe them everything.  

So as I sit here after a really, incredibly crap swim, I know that tomorrow I will go & do the same because really its the least I can do to help raise some funds.. and also I don’t want to drown.