Hettie Smitham joined Little Friends Playgroup which is owned by my wife back in April 2017.

Hettie is a gorgeous, chatty, clever and beautiful 3 year old little girl who has a twin sister called Evelyn. When they were born, they were both perfectly healthy and hit all their milestones. Unfortunately when Hettie was around 8 months old, she started to regress and failed to progress any further than sitting up. After months of tests, she was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2.

SMA is a lifelong condition and is life limiting, we have no idea how long Hettie has on this earth. Some children with Type 2 can live long into their adult years and this is our dream for Hettie.

SMA affects the entire body. The weakness starts centrally and works outwards. Without a cure Hettie will never walk and will only get weaker. This will result in inevitable respiratory problems and curvature of the spine etc.

Despite all this in the short time Hettie has attended Little Friends she has made a huge imprrssion on all the staff and children with the strength and character she shows every day, my 4 year old son Alfie even told me on our recent holiday that he is going to 'marry his girlfriend Hettie'.

I am going to run the Cardiff Half Marathon in October 2017 to raise as much money as possible to contribute in helping make Hetties life as comfortable and enjoyable as it can possibly be.