As you may have heard, our little baby Stanley lost his brave fight for life on 8th June, aged just 11 days.  From being such a healthy and strong boy, it came as a huge shock to us.

 

Stanley had an incredibly rare and incurable heart defect.

 

We were rushed to Southampton Hospital as they are the UK's best heart specialists, but sadly due to the severity of his condition his other organs had shut down.  The doctors were amazing and were able to stabilise his condition, allowing us the chance to spend a few more days with our beloved son and come to terms with the magnitude of what was ahead.

 

In those few days we were able to bath him, sleep with him, hold him and although through a tube, I was able to feed him my milk which acted as a real comfort.  Although he was incredibly poorly, we really got to know him and caught a glimpse of the little boy that he would have become.  He was quite the toughie and although he was taken off his life support, his fighting spirit shone through until he slipped away and went to sleep painlessly and peacefully with us.

 

The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Southampton (PICU) and its staff were phenomenal and the only way we can truly thank them enough is like this.  We won't be running marathons and Gordon won't be waxing his legs, so this is just a shameless plea to raise cash!

 

Although most of you never had the chance and privilege of meeting Stanley, please give generously.

 

Gordon, Laura and Bertie x x x