Dear everyone...
As you all know, Liam and I are now the insanely besotted proud parents of beautiful Pearl Rock, born on Feb 24 2009. What some of you may not know is that little Pearl was born with a very critical heart condition called Pulmonary Atresia, which means the valve in her heart couldn’t open properly and pump through blood which would prevent oxygen from reaching her lungs.Pearl was diagnosed 4 months before she was even born and although we didn’t feel very lucky at the time, if it wasn’t for the sheer professional expertise of the foetal cardiology medicine unit at St Georges hospital Tooting we would have been none the wiser until it was too serious to fix. As it was, they spotted the problem well in advance and spent the rest of the pregnancy taking excellent care of us and preparing to treat Pearl as soon as she was born.
At only a few hours old Pearl was transferred to The Royal Brompton in South Kensington, one of the World’s leading Heart hospitals, and had her first operation at only 20 hours old. She was nothing short of miraculous and defied the original expectations to make phenomenal progress and show almost no symptoms of her original condition, with no small thanks owed to her team of doctors.The first 2 weeks of her life were spent in Intensive Care at The Brompton, where the care she received was second to none, we were truly humbled by the skill and support of the doctors and nurses, not only those who directly treated her but the people who took care of me and Liam too.
Pearl continues to go from strength to strength in the most inspiring way, she’s beautiful, smart, engaging, happy and most importantly healthy.It’s impossible to know how to thank the people who help save your child’s life, when we left the hospital we bought them a giant tin of biscuits and a thank you card, clearly a woefully inadequate gesture! So I’ve now decided to take part in the Adidas Women’s 5k Challenge on Sept 6 to try and raise some money for The Brompton Fountain Foundation. I don’t expect to raise enough for any fancy new medical machinery but even a few pounds could buy a new TV for the milk expressing rooms, where the mums get milk ready for the babies in the ICU, or a few new coffee mugs for the Parents accommodation upstairs from the Children’s Ward.
I know times are hard for us all, but if you can spare even a few pounds (literally every penny counts!) I would be very grateful. I feel it’s the least I can do for the people who helped fix Pearl.Lots of love Leah x
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