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I am flying out to Africa on 21st July with my friend Vicky to climb Mount Kilamanjiro. I am doing this to raise money for the paediatric intensive care unit at the Evelina Childrens hospital (situated next to St Thomas' hospital in London) that looked after our daughter Rebecca.
Rebecca was born on 14th June 2007. The pregnancy and birth birth went well and we took our beautiful baby home, looking forward to caring for her and watching her achieve all the milestones we all celebrate; learning to crawl, walk, talk, starting school, leaving school, getting married, having children of her own.
Our lives changed forever when Rebecca was 11 days old she became very ill very quickly. I took her to Luton and Dunstable A&E and the staff there acted very quickly to try to stabilise her. They did not immediately know what was causing her to be so ill, only that her heart had stopped beating for a short time and her organs were starting to fail. They managed to stabalise her enough to transfer her to the Evelina in London, which specialises in heart conditions.
The doctors and nurses were all wonderful and they worked very hard to keep Rebecca alive and to find out what was casuing her illness. She had to be on a ventilator and had several infusions to keep her relatively stable. It was so awful to see our helpless baby connected to all these different machines and not be able to hold her or comfort her, but the staff were so caring and they explained everything that was happening and answered any questions we had. Eventually after numerous test they discovered she had a rare disease called enterovirus myocarditis, which is an infection in the heart that causes irreparable damage. Her condition slightly improved, but then she got another infection that overwhelmed her tiny little body. The doctors told us she would not get better, only the machines were keeping her alive. We made the heartbreaking decision to take her off of the ventilator and she died on 11th July at just 27 days old.
The hospital was so supportive during and after our time there, and I want to give something back to them and in a way it also feels that I am doing something for Rebecca, who we miss so much every single day.
While we were there we were told that they always needed bedding and practical things, but also that they needed toys and other things to try to bring some normality to the very sick children they were looking after. When Rebecca died we asked that people donated money instead of buying flowers and we were overwhelmed by peoples' generosity. We were given around £900 and we used that to buy books, toys, dvds, portable dvd players, bedding and clothes. I would like to be able to raise money to buy the same sort of things again in the hope of making the time at hospital for other babies and children as comfortable as possible.
Please donate as much or as little as you can afford, it will be greatly appreciated.
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