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Jimmy's Story:

On 21st September 2016 our baby boy James William Shaw was born. Three minutes later his twin sister Isabel followed, two beautiful new siblings for our 18 month-old daughter Alexa. Jimmy really was exceptionally handsome with a full head of auburn hair with a highlight streak of blond on his crown, which had seemingly already undergone a designer haircut/styling, so that the nurses at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital nicknamed him ‘One Direction’. Both twins were thriving at home and we were excitedly beginning to look to the future together as a family of five.

At just five and a half weeks old our little Jimmy became suddenly, unexpectedly and desperately unwell with presumed sepsis (an overwhelming infection) and a complicating blood clot to his bowel. Despite the heroic efforts of the staff of our local hospital, the Children's Acute Transfer Service (CATS) ambulance team and ultimately Great Ormond Street Hospital Intensive Care Unit, Jimmy could not be saved. He died in our arms on the evening of 31st October, 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 those 2 days of seeing him so desperately unwell and how bereft Jimmy’s death left us, our hearts were truly broken.

Three weeks after Jimmy died, and just two days after we had buried him, his twin sister Izzy too suddenly became unwell of an unrelated condition (a diaphragmatic hernia with malrotation), 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, it was nothing short of torture. Thankfully Izzy’s operation was successful and she recovered.

Jimmy's mummy Emily is a hospital doctor, and can hand-on-heart honestly say that in 12 years experience as a clinician has 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 our little boy, he received the best possible care in the world, by the most humane doctors and nurses we have ever met and for that we are 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 for GOSH, specifically in Jimmy’s name, as his legacy.

With over £170,000 raised in total so far, we have already paid for five new ventilators for GOSH in Jimmy’s name (we needed £103,800 for these in all). We are now looking to raise a further £200,000 to kit out a state-of-the-art surgical theatre and operation recovery room at GOSH.

Please join us in fundraising and/or give what you can. Please email us at littlejimmybrighterfuturefund@gmail.com if you would like to join us in a fundraising event. More information may be found at www.littlejimmybrighterfuturefund.com.

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