hello everyone.

Ava is a MASSIVE animal lover. We are going to try and raise some money to surprise ava with her very own therapy dog. Some of you will have followed Ava’s journey for the last few years some of you may not, so please take a read of her story.

In May 2015 Ava who was then 6 years old started to develope headaches, at the time as her parents we didnt think anything of it. These headaches continued for a few months and then in August 2015 she started complaining that she was feeling very faint, so i took her to our local GP, on examination the GP could see Ava was in quite a lot of pain and unstable on her feet so she sent us to our local childrens Emergency Department. Ava was examined by a Doctor at the hospital who just said “its a migraine, shes ok” and they sent us home. In September 2015 Ava had been feeling unwell at school, I went into the school to see her and she practically collapsed into my arms, she was so pale, sweating, extremly weak and at that point I knew straight away I wanted a second opinion. I took Ava straight back up to the Childrens Emergency Department and she saw a different Doctor, he examined Ava and discovered she had a heart murmur and that he was wasnt happy with her symptoms so he admitted her straight away and arranged for her to have a Brain MRI the following day. The next day came and Ava was feeling very poorly and very worried as she had never had an MRI, they wanted her to be given a General anaesthetic so that she was as still as possible for the imaging but as was short notice there was no available Anaesthetist to do this. It was now time for her MRI and she became very upset so I went into the room with her and sat at the end of the bed while she went into the machine and was rubbing her leg to try comfort her, after 20 minutes I told them that she had, had enough, she was trying to hold back her tears and it was breaking my heart watching her. We went back to her bed and awaited the results. 6 hours passed and ava had just fallen asleep when the doctor come to her bed and asked to talk to me in private and I was taken into another room with 2 doctors and a nurse, I knew straight away something was wrong. The doctor sat me down and told me they didnt get a lot of images as I stopped it early but from what they have got they can see ava has something covering he whole right side of her brain and they do not know what it is. I was then told that the doctor had contacted a childrens hospial in london who specialise in children neurology and they wanted to see her ASAP! I was in complete shock!!! I knew something was wrong with my little girl but wasnt expecting this. The doctor asked if I had any questions and although I obviously had a ton of them I was in shock and said “no” and I went back into avas room, once in he room I burst into tears and then I felt a hand on my shoulder, it was he nurse Who was in the room with the doctors and myself, and she just hugged me while I cried. She helped me calm down and told me to write any questions I had no matter how silly they may be down on paper so that i would be ready when the time came to ask them. She was truly amazing to me! I then had a very difficult job of calling my husband, Ava‘s dad, who was at home looking after our 2 younger sons. He answered and all i could do was cry, I cried and cried before I could talk. I explained they had found something on her brain and that we were being transferred to london. All I remember was him saying “oh my god, no, not our little girl”. I cannot tell you the pain we were both in at that point, as a parent we have never been so scared in our lives as we were at that moment. I laid next to Ava all night watching her, I didnt sleep, I was crying and I started to have panic attacks, a million things going around in my head.

The morning arrived and while ava was still asleep the nurse who had looked after me creeped in and slipped a little present on to the end of avas bed for her for when she woke up!! One amazing nurse!! When Ava did wake up she had no clue what had been happening around her. I held her hand and told her that he drs think her brain might be a bit poorly and another dr wanted to look at her in london, I told her we were going on an adventure in an ambulance and tried to make it as non scary as I could! I knew I could not cry in front of her and didnt want her to be scared. Later that day her nan come and sat with her while I went home and packed our bags. The following morning We took that adventure in the ambulance that took us to the Evelina Childrens hospital.

Ava then spent rhe next 3 weeks in hospital seeing various neurologist, heart specialist, dermatologist , Rheumatologist. She was given a General anaesthetic and had another brain MRI a Lumbar puncture an Echocardiogram and numerous blood tests. They discovered the heart murmur was what they call an innocent murmur so that was one worry gone. The blood results showed high inflammation and high interferon levels, the brain MRI showed a white matter covering half her brain but yet no one knew what it was. We were eventually told we could finally go home but she needed regular visits up to london for monitoring. we got home the end of October 2015! Ava eventually went back to school, she was very tired and allowed to sleep in class, this made some of her classmates jealous and ava began getting bullied, ava was punched in the face on 2 occasions, had her glasses broken, pinned up against the wall by her throat and pushed into walls. Ava now has very bad anxiety and panic attacks due to all of this!

2 years have passed and Ava still has no diagnose for her brain abnomalities! Her headaches and intense and brings her to a hault! She has now also been diagnoised in november 2017 with myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome also know as ME/CFS which is making her life even more difficult, she has muscle or joint pain, this pain can leave her screaming in agony, she some days cannot walk where it is so painful. She has even more headaches, ulcers covering her mouth, problems concentrating due to the aches and pains, feels dizzy and sick everyday, has had a blackout, has awful stomach cramps and extreme tiredness which can sometimes see her sleeping for 2 days.

Ava is now on part time schooling and shes just been referred for home tutoring, she has also been held back a year as she misses so much school through being ill or in hospital! Not a day goes by where my little girl does not suffer from either pain or extreme tiredness!

The last 2 years have been soul destroying watching her go through all of this. She currently sees 9 different medical departments with Hospital appointments weekly. She has alot more tests coming up in the future and through it all she still manages to smile!!!

However this last few weeks shes had a pretty rough time health wise, shes not been referred to the wheechair services so that we can get her around easier on her bad days, and shes been feeling low about the fact she cant do anything and her brother gets to do football and she cant because shes too poorly.

So, ava is a HUGE animal lover and after speaking to her Occupational Therapist we both think a therapy dog would really be a lovely aid for ava, it would be brought from a puppy and then when it reaches 9 months old ava and the dog go on a special therapy training course together. This dog will be the one to cuddle ava when she is in pain, when she needs a friend, when she needs that extra bit of love!

I‘ve never used crowdfunding before for anything but a few people have suggest I do this for Her so here it goes!

Writing all of this has been very hard, bringing back all the terrible memories but it makes me also see how strong we are as a family!! Ava have has an amazing daddy and 2 loving younger brothers who would do anything for her!

Lets get Ava this therapy dog because if anyone deserves it its definitely her!

Thank you all xxx