My amazing nephew, Bertie, was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition called Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA) and Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) at my sister in law, Clare's, 20 week scan in October 2019. TGA is a condition where the aorta is connected to the right ventricle, where it should be connected to the left ventricle, and the pulmonary artery is connected to the left ventricle, where it should be connected to the right.

Bertie was born in March 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and spent the first few months of his life in and out of hospital. On the night that Bertie was born he had surgery to fit a balloon in his heart to enable blood from both sides of the heart to mix and at just 4 weeks old Bertie underwent 10 hours of open heart surgery to switch the blood vessels and fix the VSD. The surgery was a great success and less than a week later Bertie was discharged home.

Tiny Tickers are a small charity, who provided an incredible amount of support to my brother, James, and Clare from the moment Bertie's condition was diagnosed, right through and continuing day. They provided so much information prior to Bertie being born to prepare James and Clare for what lay ahead and helped connect them to other 'heart families'.

Tiny Tickers also campaign to improve the early detection and care of heart babies by providing specialist training for sonographers at 20 week scans, increasing awareness and providing machines that help detect heart defects in newborns. A baby is born with a serious heart condition every 2 hours in the UK and despite congenital heart disease being one of the biggest killers of infants, only around 50% of congenital heart defects are picked up at the 20 week scan. 

It has been amazing to watch Bertie grow into such a strong, healthy little boy over the last 15 months - it's been quite a transformation from the first time we got to 'meet' him through the window in March during lockdown. The strength James and Clare have shown in what has been an incredibly challenging year has I'm sure been helped by the support from Tiny Tickers.

I am excited to be running the London Marathon for Tiny Tickers alongside James who is also running for them having secured a place in the ballot in 2020. Any donation, however small, will be hugely appreciated by our whole family. Having only ever run 5k until recently this is going to be a huge challenge for me! Your support, and the thought of seeing Bertie on the finishing line with his cousins, will no doubt push me through the long training runs over the summer and those last few difficult miles in October.