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As a team we are hoping to raise as much money as we can for the Birmingham Children’s hospital’s Heart Appeal.

Pictured to the left is Andy’s son Sam Coyle, a very brave little boy indeed, against all the odds, Sam has survived a string of severe heart defects including a condition called Hypo-Plastic Right Heart in which the right ventricle is missing. The Great Arteries were also wrongly positioned and Sam was born with a large hole in his heart. Until recently, children with such complex problems would have died within hours of birth but his family opted for immediate surgery, known as Fontan’s Procedure when he was just 4 days old, to try to keep him alive.

Despite numerous complications, and several other operations, including unplanned surgery to widen his pulmonary arteries as they were too narrow for him to cope, he is now doing well and although he gets tired sooner than other children, he loves playing with his friends and family and has started at Kenthurst Pre-School near the family home in Sutton Avenue, Eastern Green.

He also faces the third Fontan’s stage at around 4 years old and will need a heart transplant later in life.

Sam’s a real fighter and mostly does very well and tries to join in everything. To us it’s amazing he’s here, as we never thought he’d get this far. Sometimes he gets a dangerously fast heart rate – over 200 beats a minute - and he’ll suddenly get very sick and sweaty and even collapse. Then we have to rush him by ambulance to the resuscitation unit at A and E and they put a line in to give his heart a chemical shock. They have a team of doctors and nurses waiting for him when we arrive and they have got to know him very well in the last 3 years!”

The Heart Appeal aims to raise £2 million to build a state-of the-art ‘hybrid” operating theatre at the hospital, allowing different procedures to be carried out on the same patient at the same time. It will also expand the hard-pressed Intensive Care Unit, increasing the number of beds from 20 to 31, vital when desperately ill children suddenly arrive and a few minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

So as you can see any contribution will be greatly received,

Thanks again for visiting our site!

See you at the starting line….Mel, Andy, Julie, Rachel, Michael, Phil & Bernie ;-))))