Today our son Harrison is a happy, lively 3 year old boy, but at our 20 week scan we were unsure what the future would hold for our unborn son as he was diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease. We assumed we would be transferred to the care of Great Ormond Street Hospital but were told our care would be under the Evelina London Children's Hospital, a hospital which we and many others were unaware of. It is situated in the grounds of St Thomas' Hospital and the care this hospital has provided has been amazing. Without them Harrison would not be here today.

Harrison was born at 37 weeks and at 12 days old he underwent his first open heart surgery. They had to operate on the aorta as it was very narrow and the blood was not flowing as it should be. He was in hospital for five weeks and he did really well for the first 8 months. Then we were told that a membrane had grown across his mitral value which was making his heart work harder and they advised us further surgery would be needed but they wanted to do it at the right time and give him a chance to grow and get stronger. So at 11 months old Harrison underwent his second open heart surgery to remove the membrane, unfortunately they also had to operate on his aorta again as this had narrowed again, he was in surgery for around 8 hours. However two weeks later he was home and running around, you wouldn't have believed he had just undergone surgery. All was fine until a couple of months before his third birthday when his consultant noticed that the membrane had grown back again resulting in the valve not working correctly causing an increased pressure on the right side of his heart, this was therefore putting him in real danger and making the surgery urgent. So he underwent his third open heart surgery just before Christmas, this time it critical and we were told he had to be given a few shocks before and after surgery to keep him stable. Again if it hadn't been for the surgeons and their teams plus the doctors and nurses on the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) Harrison would not be here today.

Following each of his surgeries he was monitored in PICU. The PICU team provide 1:1 care but they go beyond this by supporting us as parents too. As a parent during this time you are helpless in the care of your child as they need the specialism of the PICU team, however this team include you every step of the way to relieve some of the worries and enable you to support in the care of your child. They also have accommodation within the hospital so you are close to hand which enabled us to be near Harrison 24 hours/day.

They also provided us and other parents with diaries and we were encouraged to keep a daily diary to document Harrison's journey and after each intense 12 hour shift the nurse who cared for him wrote in it too, even if it meant they left the hospital late, nothing was too much for them. The unit also has a Play Therapist and volunteers who help assist in your child's recovery which takes away the clinical feel for the child. The money we want to raise will help towards valuable resources to continue this support to other parents and the recovery for each child, which makes the difficult journey in PICU a little more bearable.

So the charity golf day gives us the chance to give something back and we have already had loads of people supporting our function. We will be hosting a golf day at Southern Valley golf course with the aim of having 60 golfers during the day for a bit of fun followed by an evening event where we will have food and music and also an auction with the aim of raising as much money as we can for PICU at the Evelina London Children's Hospital. We have already had some great items donated and any further donations would be great. Thanks to everyone for taking time to read this and also supporting our family through difficult times.

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