In June 2020 our beautiful 20-year old son Tom (Laz) suffered a devastating spinal cord injury whilst doing a shallow dive into a swimming pool. Airlifted to King’s College London he could breathe only with the assistance of a ventilator. In  hospital things took a turn for the worse when he developed rhabdomyolysis, a condition which causes the death of muscle fibres and the release of their contents into the bloodstream. This led to serious complications with his kidneys. He nearly died.

Tom is a fighter and he survived this and is now off the ventilator, but it significantly put back his recovery. After 4 months in ICU, we were so excited when we he was well enough to be transferred to Stoke Mandeville, considered to be the best spinal cord rehabilitation centre in the country. In our eyes this was, after all the set backs, the real start of his recovery.

However, we were devastated when we found out that due to COVID, Tom is only able to receive 4 hours of physio per week and he has just been told that he will be discharged, in February, to a care home. This is not a future for a 20 year old to have to contemplate. As there is no realistic pathway  for Tom to fulfill his potential at Stoke Mandeville,  we need to transfer him to a