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per Lewis

Stuart Ellerby is raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity
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London Marathon 2021 · 3 October 2021 ·

We are Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. We stop at nothing to help give seriously ill children childhoods that are fuller, funner and longer. Because we believe no childhood should be lost to illness.

Story

Our relationship with Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) began when our 6 week old premature son (Lewis) presented with a heart condition at our local hospital. We were transferred to GOSH on Friday 27th September and the head cardiologist on Bear Ward (Dr. Alessandro Giardini) quickly diagnosed Lewis with a condition known as Total anomalous pulmonary venous return (TAPVR) which effects 1 in 20,000 babies. 

Lewis had Open Heart Surgery on 30th September and the surgery was a success thanks to Ben Davies and his team.

Lewis recovered quickly from the surgery and we were discharged from GOSH and went home on 10th October. 

Due to Lewis being premature and weighing less than 2.3kg (5lbs) when he underwent surgery, Lewis had developed many clots in his veins due to the access required during and post-surgery. This caused swelling around his eyes and neck and a condition called chylothorx- this meant Lewis was unable to process breast milk and it caused fluid build up around the lungs. This brewing in the background was compounded when he caught respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) which is an infection in the lungs which caused us to rush to A&E on a Saturday night as his lungs packed up. We went via blue lights to GOSH on the 28th October and we are still here in their incredible care today.

A month passed and Lewis was slowly getting better when he presented with Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) which doesn't give good reading. This condition was again likely due to being premature and post cardiac, in Layman's terms, part of the bowl starts to narrow and eventually dies- 50% of babies with the condition don't make it. Our chances were greatly improved as we were already in GOSH, Lewis had emergency bowl surgery on Friday 29th November and Dr Curry and his team did an exceptional job.

In total Lewis has had 5 blood transfusions, 2 infections due to the picc line and 4 other procedures that have required general anaesthetic to deal with the issues that he has come up against since the original open-heart surgery.  

We are currently still at GOSH and Lewis turned 4 months old on 10th January. We hope we are through the worst of his procedures and we just require time for Lewis to grow and develop new collateral veins so that he is able to transport fluid around the body effectively. 

It goes without saying that my wife and I will be eternally grateful to GOSH. The first-class service at GOSH cannot be understated, the level of care, first class equipment, world leading procedures, specialist nurses, doctors, consultants, surgeons are incredible. It really is a up there as one of the best children's hospitals in the world and a national treasure.

One of the main reasons it is a world leader and can offer children the most incredible care and procedures is because of the generosity of the public and the effort that people associated with GOSH put in. We really feel part of the GOSH family and the least I can do is run 26.2miles and ask people I know to give a little. 

I am conscious of asking people to give up some of their hard-earned cash so Gloria and I will put in the first £1,000 to get us going. This a small token compared to the huge amounts of funds that have been required to keep our son alive.


Donation summary

Total
£18,557.51
+ £2,789.35 Gift Aid
Online
£18,056.51
Offline
£501.00

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