On 8th October 2017, I'll be running The Royal Parks Foundation Half-Marathon to raise money for the Little Jimmy Brighter Future Fund.

The fund was established to buy life-support equipment for the Intensive Care Units at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). It is in memory of James William Shaw, the son of my close friends Emily and Pete Shaw, who tragically died at GOSH at just 5.5 weeks old (please see Emily's story below).

To distract myself from the task at hand, I thought I may as well dress to impress. So I'll be running as James' big sister Lexy's favourite anthropomorphic livestock, Peppa Pig. She's not renowned for her sporting prowess and both her eyes are on one side of her head, so she may struggle to keep focused. But she's only four years old, apparently, so will hopefully be able to provide some of the adolescent vigour I lack.

Thanks so much for your support.

Love Bex x

Here's a bit more about Jimmy from his incredible mum, Emily:

James William Shaw was born on 21st September 2016, followed three minutes later by his sister Isabel. Both twins were thriving at home, our 18-month old Alexa was just beginning to understand that she was an older sister and my husband, Pete, and I were excitedly looking to the future with as a family of five. 

Then, at just 5.5 weeks old, Jimmy became suddenly, unexpectedly and devastatingly unwell with a blood clot to the bowel. Despite the determined efforts of the ambulance services, our local hospital and ultimately Great Ormond Street Hospital Intensive Care Unit, Jimmy could not be saved and died in our arms two days after becoming unwell, covered in the kisses of his mummy and daddy, who told him how loved he was.

It is beyond words how traumatised we were left by seeing Jimmy so desperately sick and how bereft his death left us, our hearts were truly broken. Then, three weeks after Jimmy died, and just two days after we had buried him, his twin sister Izzy too became unwell with an unrelated condition. We were just seemingly that unlucky. Within 24 hours, Izzy was undergoing emergency, life-or-death surgery at Great Ormond Street. We genuinely believed we were going to lose a second child that day. Thankfully Izzy's surgery was successful and she recovered.

I am a hospital doctor and I can hand-on-heart honestly say that in my 11 years experience as a clinician I have never seen such a unanimous, continuous and determined effort and bloody-minded resolve to save a life as with Jimmy. The medical staff gave blood, sweat and tears to save my little boy, he received the best possible care in the world, by the most humane doctors and nurses I have ever met and for that I am beholden to them. 

Beyond the world-class care both he and Izzy received at GOSH, our family received unbounded care and kindness, practical support (such as neighbouring accommodation) and pastoral support that continues to this day (including bereavement counselling). GOSH gave us our very best hope of saving Jimmy, saved the life of Izzy and took extremely delicate and humane care of us parents in the process.

Very soon after these experiences we became resolved on trying to repay some of our perceived incalculable debt to GOSH, nurture something positive out of such a tragic loss and continue to strive to keep Jimmy’s memory alive. We are pulling together an army of impossibly loyal family and friends to join us in fundraising a hugely ambitious amount of money to buy life-support equipment for the Intensive Care Units of GOSH, specifically in Jimmy’s name, as his legacy. 

Please donate what you can, share our story and let us know if you too would like to fundraise in Jimmy's name by emailing us on littlejimmybrighterfuturefund@gmail.com.

Love and gratitude from Emily, Pete, Lexy and Izzy Shaw xx

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