Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

A small group of family and friends are going to be riding from John O'Groats to Lands End leaving Scotland on the 2nd of September on 50cc scooters using only small roads, as we arent legally allowed to ride on motorways. Its going to be a little under 1000 miles in 6 to 8 days assuming we dont get lost or have too many breakdowns, mechanical or emotional. Average speed is a frightening 18mph so we will be wearing all protective equipment or eating extra pies to provide the necessary padding!

This is why we are doing it........

Daniel was born April 26th 2005. While in hospital a few hours after his birth it became apparent that Daniel was very unwell, and was diagnosed with Transposition of the Great Arteries.

Babies born with this condition cannot survive without open heart surgery. He had various procedures to keep him alive, until at 2 weeks old, Dan had his first operation which due to complications took about 10 hours. The exhausted Surgeon found us in the waiting room to say 

" If he survives the night he might have a chance, as his heart has stopped twice during the surgery!"

An amazing team operated on Dans heart, which at that time was the size of a walnut.

Daniel pulled through and came home after 6 weeks. 

He has had check ups every 6 months with a consultant paediatric cardiologist ever since.

However, in Daniels case, one of the side effects of  this type of surgery was narrowing of the pulmonary arteries.This meant he had to have another procedure to widen his arteries. This should have involved placing stents inside the affected area to widen the arteries for increased blood flow to his lungs, as his heart was working too hard, due to the narrowing. If left untreated it would have caused irreparable damage to his heart.

This procedure was unfortunately unsuccessful and the decision was made to proceed with a second open heart surgery.

 So December 2016 We arrived with our 11 year old son at Bristol Royal Childrens Hospital for the operation.

Daniel showed incredible courage when his operation was cancelled at the last minute, due to a lack of intensive care beds. A bed was available 2 days later and the operation went ahead. With Daniel achieving his target of leaving hospital 5 days later (its normally around 10 days) with an awesome display of tenacity to get himself home for Christmas.

Daniel has recovered extemely well and the hope is he wont need any further surgery.

All the staff in the Childrens Hospital work extremely hard in what must be incredibly stressful conditions, while always remaining professional and compassionate.

We want to help contribute to this amazing hospital, to enable them to continue to provide their outstanding level of care to any child unfortunate enough to need it. 

Bristol Royal Childrens Hospital provides care from Lands End to as far afield as the Isle of Wight. Fishguard in Wales across to Reading.

They have the largest coverage of specialist childrens care in England. If you live in the South West UK . Then this is YOUR Childrens Hospital.

And its an exceptional one.........