Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.
This page has been set up in loving memory of my gorgeous daughter Esme Willow Cheeseman who was taken by the angels on the 13th December 2007. When she was just 4 months and 11 days old.
Esme was born with a left sided diaphragmatic hernia on the 2nd August 2007, It meant that Esme had a hole in her diaphragm that did not close when she was in the womb. So her liver, bowel, stomach, spleen and intestines were all in her chest cavity. This led to her having severely underdeveloped lungs and her heart being shifted to the other side of her body.
She had already undergone two surgeries in the womb to insert a balloon into her windpipe to force her lungs to grow. Then when she was born she was immediately taken from me, sedated, and ventilated. When she was 10 days old she had surgery to replace the organs where they should be, and to repair the hole in the diaphragm by making a patch partly from a pig intestine! Esme started to get better and we had our first cuddle at 6 weeks old.
Shortly after, Esme deteriorated and she had a pneumothorax. Her lung had blown a hole and she was gravely ill. She was sedated again, and had a chest drain put in to get rid of the fluid and air. Being the little fighter that she was she pulled through again and she slowly started to recover.
It was like a roller coaster. One day Esme would be doing really well and we really believed that we would be taking our daughter home, and other days I was scared beyond belief that she would be taken away from me.
As a result of having the diaphragmatic hernia, Esme had pulmonary hypertension and severe reflux. She needed to have yet another operation to loosen the previous patch and tie her stomach around her oesophagus to stop the milk refluxing into her lungs.
They had to stop the operation several times as Esme was very fragile in theatre, and when she returned she continued to deteriorate. Then the blood vessels in Esme's lungs haemorrhaged. This meant that oxygen could not be delivered around her body and to her vital organs including her brain as her lungs were just filled with blood. We then had to make the dreaded decision to turn off Esme's life support before one by one the organs failed. Esme had pulled through so much, she really wanted to be here but her fighting spirit lost against her weak lungs. There was no way our daughter was going to survive, we were crushed, our world was taken away in the early hours of the morning and we had to let the angels take her away to a place where she would be free from pain, operations and daily medical procedures.
But we take comfort in knowing that we spent 4 months and 11 days with our beautiful daughter and its all thanks to RMHC that we could spend every precious minute of the day with her. The house in Camberwell was literally a 3 minute walk away from the hospital and there was a phone in the room that was connected to Intensive care so if anything happened to Esme in the middle of the night we could be there for her in minutes.
We once got a call to say that Esme had taken a turn for the worse. If we were at home in Chatham, the trains would not have been running and it would be an hour and a half drive to get to Esme which may have been too late!
I will always be eternally grateful that thanks to RMHC I got to enjoy Esme as much as I could, learn her characteristics, cuddle her, do her care and be a mummy. It also enabled me to have an input in Esme's treatments and be there for every procedure that was done to her.
There was no charge for me being at this house. My boyfriend Paul had to return to work so I would have had to get the train daily from Chatham for the 19 weeks that Esme was with us, or pay for a hotel. This is my way of saying thank you and giving something back. It is also a way of ensuring that my daughters memory lives on and to enable other mums and dads to spend crucial and precious time with their sick children.
Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to donate: RMHC - Ronald McDonald House Charities will receive your money electronically and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in Gift Aid will be added to your donation at no cost to you.
Please donate generously as a child is the most precious gift anyone will be graced with. As a parent all you want is for your child to be healthy. You would do anything to make your child well again, and its heart breaking that you can't, you have to take a back seat and put all your faith in the medical staff . All you can do is be there for them and its thanks to RMHC that families all over the world can do that, you can make that difference!
Love Aimee and Paul x
Many thanks for your support.
xx
