My goal is to lose two stone in weight by Christmas – but in doing so I would love to support a charity that is very close to my heart. 

 

But before I tell you about the charity, I would like to tell you about a little boy I know.

 

His name is Kit.  He is nearly 2½ and is severely disabled by Cerebral Palsy.  Kit was delivered ‘stillborn’, he had no heartbeat for 13 minutes, was resuscitated and immediately transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care in Sheffield where Kit started fighting for his life, he was suffering seizures, had no brain activity and was beyond critical. He underwent therapeutic hypothermia and his prospects were grim, he was not expected to live and was christened at 2 days of age.

 

Kit enjoys an amazingly full and normal life in so many ways but is challenged by his physical disabilities. Kit has no fine motor skills, he will never walk or talk.  He cannot roll, crawl or sit unaided.  He can neither feed himself, pick up his own toys nor call out for his ‘Mummy’ at night.  Kit has a high and age appropriate cognitive level and will be educated in a mainstream school with one to one support.

 

Kit is my darling son – a beautiful and happy little boy who makes my heart sing and burst with pride.

 

My husband Charles and I have been on a journey few parents can ever understand, and the pain, the heartache and sadness is felt every day but, because of the professional and financial assistance that we have had, our story is positive one. 

Charles and I wouldn’t be in such a happy and positive place had it not been for a charity called The Bobath Centre.  A centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy.  Bobath is a specialist treatment centre in London providing individually tailored therapy for children who have CP.  Their aim is to improve the quality of life for disabled children so that they are healthy and active through physio, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy.

 

Without Bobath, Kit’s life today would be very different – they gave us direction, encouragement and hope.  Bobath kindly offered Kit a charitable place last January to receive a two week course of intensive therapy – the cost of this one such course was £3,500.  Bobath’s help and support was crucial to us and having experienced it first hand, I am passionate that more children should have the opportunity to enjoy such help.

 

So in gratitude to the Bobath Centre, I would like to raise as much as I possibly can for them.

 

Please will you sponsor me on my challenge to lose two stone by Christmas, to help more children like Kit to benefit by attending Bobath and motivate me to get back into shape!

 

Thank you for reading this xxx