Our son, Tommy Stringer, was born on the 16th of December 2008, he arrived into the world wearing a ‘pet’ lip and looked a bit on the ‘stoaty’ side, but aside from that, he was perfect.  A beautiful baby boy.

Unfortunately, what hadn’t been noticed at the time of his birth is that he had a congenital heart defect called transposition of the great arteries and also several large ventricular septal defects (‘holes in the heart’).  His condition was not noticed until the 16^th of January when he needed to be rushed to the Children’s Heart Unit at the Freeman hospital for emergency surgery to stabilise him. 

10 days later Mr Asif Hasan, in a 6 and a half hour procedure, performed open heart surgery to switch his main arteries and patch the holes in his heart.  Two days on intensive care and a further 4 days on ward 23 and we were home.  Even at such a tender age Tommy showed incredible courage and determination.

We will always be indebted to Mr Hasan and his team for their skill and dedication to the work they perform on a daily basis.  This is why we are going to cycle from Workington to , in 2 days, in order to raise funds for the Children’s Heart Unit so they can continue to carry out their work and push the boundaries in paediatric cardiothoracic surgery.

 

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