How your life can change in a matter of days, hours, minutes is just scary. This gorgeous, fun loving three year old pictured below; and her family, know just how quickly it can change.

Meet Tehyah, aged 3. No worries apart from if she could watch Coraline for the fifth time that day or where the next packet of crisps were coming from!

What should have been a normal day at nursery in March 2014, started a journey of sheer hell for Tehyah’s family. She was sent home from school unwell. The next morning, Tehyah’s mum Sam rang Tehyah’s grandma Debbie saying she thought Tehyah could have had a stroke. After rushing Tehyah to hospital; they checked her over and said it was bells palsy and that within a week she would be ok.

Tehyah became extremely poorly after a few days so was readmitted and would stay in there 2 weeks. After performing a CT scan of her brain at Oldham, she was on the verge of being discharged when they decided to send her to Manchester Children’s Hospital for a full MRI. The MRI showed that Tehyah’s blood vessels from her heart were not connected to her brain and that by this time she had suffered 3 strokes; she had damaged kidneys and an enlarged heart and the arteries in the back of her neck were twisted. The family were told that she didn’t have much chance of survival with or without surgery but surgery was her only option. After about 4 weeks they got a team together of all different surgeons and the first brain surgery took place to connect her vessels to her brain and untwist her arteries.

9 days later as her brain was swelling she was rushed back to theatre to have a shunt put in and the following morning she was rushed back to theatre to have part of her skull removed at the back to allow for brain swelling. They put her in an induced coma and on life support where her family were told that she had about 12 hours to live.

A few days later she was still fighting; they tried weaning her out of the coma slowly and and took the breathing apparatus off to see if she could breath on her own, she could; they had hope.

Then one fateful night; Sam and Aaron(Tehyah’s dad) were told to go and get some rest. They left the hospital and were called back less than a minute from leaving; a nurse had not read the notes and gave her an antibiotic that they knew Tehyah was seriously allergic to. She immediately suffered a massive anaphylactic shock and had to be resuscitated for 30 minutes; causing her 90% brain damage. The family were told that she had about 2 weeks to live and did they wish to take her home to die. So on June 26, 2014 Tehyah went home.

Tehyah is now 11 years old and still with us with 24 hour care from family. Tehyah has a condition called GACI (General Arterial Calcification in Infancy), 70% scoliosis, a dislocated hip, total spasticity to her arms hands and feet, she is paralysed from the neck down and is fed milk through a NG tube and numerous medicines. Tehyah can no longer talk, eat, walk, or go to the toilet. The family have had to fight for everything down to ventilation care, splints, equipment, they get nothing.

I would like to raise money for Tehyah; to enable the family to provide her with money towards a wheelchair that Tehyah is comfortable in; enabling her to go out more and be able to make memories together. With the adaptions she needs they are in excess of £7000. The bed set up she uses is £2000 plus then she needs additions constantly, to top it off the car they have is broke and even if they go through mobility schemes the adaptations they need cost a fortune. Any help and support would be sincerely appreciated. The family as a whole have certainly been through many tough times, yet still carry on and would support anyone despite their own worries.

February 1 is GACI Awareness Day, so in honour of that I am embarking on the biggest challenge I have ever done! Cycling the equivalent distance of Land’s End to John O’ Groats, 1407kilometres! I intend on doing this as quickly as I can but hopefully within February! I will keep everyone updated with my progress throughout the journey on Facebook and Instagram (Trials for Tehyah on both platforms).

Thank you for reading. Wishing you health and happiness. Stay safe xx